


Happy Ending

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-06-07 00:04:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6775774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames's speciality is coaxing unhappy people to find happiness. And Arthur, he's pretty sure, is very unhappy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU of a French movie called "Heartbreaker" which is very charming and you should watch it (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1465487/). The idea for this AU was suggested by knackorcraft, so thanks to her for slipping it across my radar AGES ago. This was actually one of the very first Inception fics I ever wrote after KtCR, it's just been sitting around on my hard drive waiting to be shared, so thanks to knack for the cheerleading!
> 
> Thank you also to my very patient arctacuda who deals with my inability to choose a single spelling for the word "drily." (TRICKY WORD THAT I USE *A LOT.*)

Chapter One

The rules were these: 

(1) They made people who didn’t know they were unhappy happy.   
(2) They didn’t break up happy couples.   
(3) They especially didn’t break up people for religious and racial reasons. 

“We work for a higher power,” Eames liked to say. “We work for the greater good.” 

“We work to pay off your gambling debts,” said Ariadne. 

“That, too,” agreed Eames. 

But he couldn’t help it: He was good at breaking people up. He didn’t cross lines. He didn’t sleep with people, he didn’t lead people on into thinking there might be a relationship with him at the end of the day. He just opened their eyes to the possibility that they deserved better, that there was more out there than what they were settling for. 

Eames liked that. 

“We sell people dreams, you know,” he told Ariadne. “That’s what we’re peddling: the ability to reach for your dreams. Or at least to keep believing in them.” 

“Uh-huh,” said Ariadne. 

Eames leaned against the window and looked out at the dingy back garden of the flat they were renting and sipped his beer and said, “Do you think they go on to be happy? The people we help? Or do you think we’re just selling them a lie? That there really isn’t anything better out there?” 

“Not like you to be negative that way,” Ariadne scolded him. “Come on, you’re the grand romantic in this operation. That’s why you turn people’s heads.” 

“Keeping stats on what happens to people after we break them up isn’t a bad idea,” mused Yusuf. “It would make a good database.” 

“What would be the point?” Ariadne asked. “We can’t make people go out and make the right choices. If they made one terrible choice, they’ll probably make other ones.” 

“Uplifting,” said Eames, and sipped his beer again. “Thanks for improving the mood.” 

“I’m just saying. And did you break up with your latest whatever?” 

“‘My latest whatever’?” Eames echoed. 

Ariadne waved her hand. “What do you call them? The people in your life when you’re not working?” 

“Girlfriends. Or boyfriends.” 

Yusuf snorted. 

Eames frowned at him. “And what’s that for?” 

“Nothing,” Yusuf said innocently. 

“Don’t you think that’s a generous name for them, Eames?” said Ariadne. “What did this one think you did?” 

“She thought I…worked for a bank.” 

Yusuf laughed energetically, tried to choke it back when Eames glared at him. 

“So what happened?” Ariadne asked blandly. 

“She realized I was lying about working for a bank.” Eames sipped his beer. “And then she didn’t believe that I’m a spy on a top-secret mission.”

“Oh, Eames,” said Ariadne, and shook her head. 

“Look. Clearly we weren’t meant to be. I don’t want to end up in one of the unhappy relationships we break up. I’m just saying, do you think there’s such a thing as a happy relationship? Do you think any of these people ever find a happy ending? Or are we just…delaying their acceptance of their disappointment?” 

“Eames.” Ariadne took the beer out of his hand and said, “Stop being maudlin. Of course there’s such a thing as a happy relationship.” 

“You think so?” asked Yusuf. 

“Yes.” Ariadne glared at him. “Don’t you think so?” 

“We’re not exactly poster children for happy relationships.” 

“We haven’t found the right people yet. There are right people out there for everyone. Even you.” She poked Eames in the chest. “In the meantime, though, we need to take another job, because we are behind on rent and you keep buying really, really, really expensive liquor and caviar and what’s this a bill for?” Ariadne brandished it in front of him. 

Eames looked at it and frowned briefly and then placed it. “Oh. It was for a piece of art.” 

“Eames. Art?” 

“The soul can’t survive on bread alone.” 

“I bet we can do pretty well.” 

“We have appearances we need to keep up, Ari,” said Eames. “I need to be dashing and attractive, and I need to have pleasure in my life to be dashing and attractive. Art brings me pleasure. Hence.” Eames indicated the bill. 

“You could spend some money on your wardrobe,” said Ariadne, “if you need to be dashing and attractive.” 

“People find my shirts irresistible, I’ll have you know.” 

“The odor of mothballs must lure them in,” commented Yusuf. “Magnetic, that is.” 

“Everyone is hilarious tonight,” said Eames drily. “How much money do we need?” 

“Twenty thousand. We need a good job.”

“One’ll come up,” said Eames. “I’m positive.” 

***

Dom Cobb frowned at his laptop screen and said, “I’m telling you, Mal. It’s just not right.” 

Mal, passing behind him on her way to the kitchen, leaned over his shoulder and looked at the website Dom was frowning at, which was an announcement that wealthy British scion Jonathan Garfield was getting married. 

“Still?” said Mal. “You’re still obsessing over this?” Mal continued on her way. 

“I just don’t see that he’s right for Arthur. I just can’t see Arthur marrying _that_.” Dom gestured at the screen. 

“Yes,” said Mal, coming out of the kitchen with a glass of wine. “Rich, handsome, works with charities… Ugh, it would be a misery for anyone to be stuck with _that_.” 

“Look.” Dom exhaled in frustration. “I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man. But I know Arthur. Arthur used to love a good _shoot-out_. And now he’s going to marry Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes there?” 

“Maybe Arthur’s settled down,” Mal suggested, resting her hand on Dom’s shoulder and looking speculatively at the computer. “It’s been known to happen, you know.” 

“There’s a difference between ‘settling down’ and ‘settling.’ Come on, you’re French, you must acknowledge this.” 

“ _Oui_ ,” said Mal, and turned away from him, walking toward the couch. 

If she was putting her back to him, it meant she thought he was right and didn’t want him to see it in her face. Dom, feeling cautiously victorious, pressed his advantage. 

“And you know Arthur. Do you think it’s likely that he wants to spend the rest of his life as an _investment banker_?” 

“There are worse things,” said Mal uncertainly, curling up on the couch. 

“The only thing worse than being an investment banker is being an investment banker married to another businessman when you are _Arthur_. Come on, you remember him, right? _Arthur_. Dark hair, frowny, wears expensive suits?” 

Mal sipped her wine. “I remember that he stopped working with you because he said he wanted to ‘grow up.’”

“Right. Okay. And he had a point.” 

“Yes.” Mal gave him a look that Dom knew meant _Because we have children and you needed to be responsible_. “He had a point.” 

“But there’s a difference between ‘growing up’ and _this_ , Mal.” Dom gestured to the computer again. 

Mal looked thoughtful. And then she said, on a soft sigh, “You’re right.” 

Dom could scarcely believe he’d heard that correctly. “I’m right?”

“ _Oui_. And it doesn’t happen very often, so revel in it. But you’re right. Arthur was…a free spirit. He was full of _joie de vivre_.” 

Dom lifted his eyebrows. “Not that I want to cast doubt on your agreeing with me, but we are talking about Arthur, who never had a hair out of place, right?” 

“He likes order and discipline. That never made him _boring_. You were just yourself saying that he used to come alive in gunfights.” 

“Yes,” Dom said. “Okay. Not sure I would have used the term ‘free spirit’ so much as…‘scary and dangerous.’ But okay.” 

Mal gave him a look, and then said, “You will think me very…French. But I have an idea.” 

“A French idea?” said Dom. “French ideas are my favorite ideas.” 

“It’s a service I’ve heard about,” explained Mal slowly. “About helping people who haven’t realized they’re unhappy.” 

***

It was a great deal of money, and they needed a great deal of money, so it was annoying that Arthur’s relationship with Jonathan was apparently rock-solid. 

“Jonathan sends _love notes_ ,” Ariadne said, and held them up from the garbage of Arthur’s that she was rifling through. 

Eames wrinkled his nose. “That seems a little twee, doesn’t it?” 

“I would _love_ to get a love note,” said Ariadne longingly. “It’s _romantic_.” 

“I think it’s overkill when you’re getting married in ten days,” commented Eames. 

“They’re keeping the romance alive,” Ariadne retorted. 

“Ten days,” said Yusuf. “They’re getting married in _ten days_ , and you’re supposed to break them up?” 

“Apparently,” said Eames, and sighed. “The guy who hired us, Arthur’s friend. What did he say is wrong with their relationship?”

“He said Arthur’s going to get bored,” said Ariadne. 

“It’s monogamy. Of course he’s going to get bored,” said Eames. 

“Eames,” Ariadne sighed at him. 

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Eames said. 

“And you’re supposed to be the great romantic here.” Ariadne glared at him and kept sifting through garbage. 

The garbage was supremely boring. Far too much takeaway, basically. And those ridiculous twee love letters. Eames didn’t know how Arthur could get bored, since Arthur was already extremely boring. Eames picked up the websites Yusuf had printed off with the research on Arthur. Attractive enough bloke, Eames thought, always dressed sharply and expensively, and always frowning. There was not a single photograph anywhere on the Internet of the man smiling. 

The thought gave Eames pause: maybe he _was_ unhappy. 

Or maybe the most interesting thing about him was the obscene tailoring of his suits. 

Eames sighed and said, “I think maybe we need to see the two of them in action.” 

Which was how he found himself pretending to be homeless so that he could sit opposite the window of a swanky London restaurant and spy on a couple having dinner. Arthur was dressed to the nines as usual. The suit was expensive and impressive and…not boring. Eames looked between Arthur and Jonathan, who was also well-dressed, but Jonathan’s suit was charcoal gray and double-breasted, Jonathan’s tie was just…red. Arthur’s suit was a three-piece in a deep, rich brown check. His shirt was an equally rich custardy-cream color and Eames was sure when it caught the light just so that it was ever so lightly striped in a contrasting gold. And his tie was a rich cornflower blue with tiny chocolate brown diamonds. Arthur was…Arthur was wearing an _amazing_ suit, actually, and making it look like a million pounds, and Eames wasn’t sure he would have noticed how much Arthur was standing out if he hadn’t been combined with the dull-as-dishwater Jonathan. 

_Arthur was going to get bored_. Eames could see it suddenly. 

“I don’t know,” said Ariadne next to him. “I think they look pretty happy.” 

Eames realized he had been staring. And he was _supposed_ to stare. But he had been staring exclusively at Arthur, whose dexterous hands were buttering bread. Eames wondered suddenly if he played the piano, because he had _beautiful_ hands. 

Ariadne’s comment made him look at Arthur _with Jonathan_. Jonathan was talking animatedly. Arthur was listening raptly, nodding as he chewed his bread, adding to the conversation, talking and gesturing, and Jonathan brushed a finger over Arthur’s wrist, calmly possessive, and Arthur linked their fingers together and kept talking about whatever they were talking about. 

Eames frowned at the pair of them and said, “He hasn’t smiled once.” 

Ariadne shrugged. “Well, maybe they’re having an intense conversation. Knowing these two, they’re probably talking about how to solve climate change or world hunger or something.” 

“Jonathan doesn’t look like they’re having a serious conversation,” Eames pointed out, because Jonathan hadn’t stopped smiling like a complete lunatic. Maybe Arthur didn’t smile because he thought Jonathan definitely smiled enough for both of them. 

“He doesn’t seem to smile much, Eames. He doesn’t smile in any of the photographs we’ve seen of him online. Ever.” 

“Maybe because he’s so desperately unhappy.” 

Ariadne gave him a look. “I think you’re grasping at straws because you want the twenty thousand.” 

“You should want the twenty thousand, too,” he informed Ariadne with a sniff of indignation. 

“We have rules about these things, Eames,” Ariadne reminded him. “We have principles. We’re the good guys. Arthur seems like a perfectly nice man who’s marrying a handsome, attentive, romantic millionaire, and we should stay out of his life.” Ariadne stood up, dusting herself off, as if that settled the whole question. 

“Would you marry him?” Eames asked. 

“Who?” Ariadne asked blankly. 

“Jonathan.” 

“I don’t even know Jonathan,” said Ariadne. 

“You know he’s a handsome, attentive, romantic millionaire. If that’s all it takes for a happy relationship, then you could marry him and be perfectly happy.” 

“Okay,” said Ariadne. “I take your point. But Arthur hasn’t given any indication that he’s not happy. And he _does_ know Jonathan.” 

Eames looked back at Arthur, at his unsmiling face, at his serious eyes, at the amazing suit, at the way Arthur’s fingers were fidgeting with everything on the table, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there. 

“I think you’re wrong,” he said simply.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

He was being outvoted. 

“You didn’t even _see_ them together,” he complained to Yusuf. 

Yusuf shrugged. “I researched them a lot. And I trust Ariadne.” 

Ariadne beamed at Eames. 

Eames practically growled with annoyance. “Why don’t you two shag already and get it over with?” 

They both turned beet-red and stammered a bit, and Eames stalked out of the flat and onto the street, where he lit a cigarette angrily and contemplated and then headed toward where Arthur worked. He wasn’t going to _do_ anything. He understood the rules of his partnership with Ariadne and Yusuf and would never outright violate those rules by going behind their backs. But he had a mobile, and he would take a few photos of unhappy-looking Arthur to convince all of them that he was right. 

And they were wrong—it wasn’t just about the twenty thousand. 

Arthur’s building was in the heart of the Financial District, and it was surrounded by people coming and going in suits. They all were frowning very intently. Maybe, Eames considered, a lot of Arthur’s frowning was just how investment bankers _looked_. 

And then a silky voice said to him, “Mr. Eames. How fortuitous that we should run into each other.” 

Eames kept himself from grimacing, looking at the man in front of him, who could have been mistaken for any of the businessmen all around them, if it wasn’t for the huge, beefy hulk of a man looming behind him and glaring threateningly at everybody. 

Eames forced a smile onto his face. “Ludwig! Hello! Out enjoying the lovely weather?”

“Let’s chat,” said Ludwig, and nodded his head off to the side, and Eames found his collar taken up as he was unceremoniously propelled into a tiny, dark alleyway between two sleek skyscrapers, where the dumpsters were kept. 

“Hey,” Eames said when Ludwig’s hired help let go of his collar. “No need for the manhandling.” Eames straightened his collar. “I would have come willingly.” 

“Where is my thirty thousand?” Ludwig asked, not looking the least bit amused by Eames. 

Eames hated people who weren’t at least a little bit amused by him. “I am totally, absolutely getting that to you very, very soon now.” 

“It’s overdue,” Ludwig reminded him. 

“Yes. I’m aware. But it was—the thing about that is—”

“Save it,” Ludwig said. “It doesn’t actually do me much good to have Olaf here break your finger, but I think it would give me great pleasure, and that’s better than nothing.” 

Eames put his hands behind his back and said, “I think this is all very hasty.” 

And then a voice said, flatly, unimpressed, “Is there a problem?” 

Olaf looked like he was still ready to break Eames’s finger, but Ludwig turned and said happily, “No, no, no problem at all. Merely out enjoying the lovely weather.” 

Eames was still watching Olaf warily, so he was missing the finer points of Ludwig’s interaction with the mystery man, although he did hear him say, “It’s fucking freezing and gross.” 

American, thought Eames vaguely, still watching Olaf. His rescuer was American. 

Ludwig laughed very fakely, and Eames had the sudden thought that this poor bloke, whoever he was, was going to get himself killed here. Eames risked taking his eyes off of Olaf long enough to take in…Arthur. It was _Arthur_ , standing in a trench coat with his hands deep in his pockets and a cigarette drooping from his mouth. Eames thought he looked like some kind of bloody avenging angel, but Eames’s perspective might have been skewed by his current situation. At any rate, Arthur looked like he knew exactly what he was getting into here, and also like he didn’t mind it at all. In fact, Arthur’s dark, calm eyes as they regarded Ludwig looked like they were saying, _Try it. I dare you_. 

Arthur said, “At any rate, you’re making me very late.” Arthur took his cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled a stream of smoke and looked at Eames. “Let’s go.” 

Eames was startled. He realized he was staring and managed to close his mouth. 

Ludwig said, “Oh, Mr. Eames and I were in the middle of—”

“But Mr. Eames and I have a lunch appointment,” Arthur interrupted smoothly, “and you’re making us late, and that will throw off all of my appointments for the rest of the day, and my secretary is going to want to kill me for that, and that would make me want to kill you.” Arthur leveled cool eyes on Ludwig and took another casual drag on his cigarette. “So you and Mr. Eames can finish your conversation and then you can deal with me and my schedule and that won’t actually be pleasant, I promise you.” 

Ludwig turned to look at Eames. He was smiling a hideous, plastered-on smile that very clearly read _I am going to murder you_. “I suppose we can finish this later,” he bit out. 

“Absolutely,” Eames said, and stepped out from behind the mountain of Olaf. “See you later.” 

Arthur had already started walking out of the alleyway, and Eames had to jog to catch up with him. 

“Hey,” he said, “thanks for—”

“Shut up,” Arthur said, “and follow me.” 

“Okay,” Eames agreed, because now he didn’t know what the hell was going on. 

He followed Arthur to one of those swanky restaurants that catered to businessman lunches. Every single person in the restaurant was wearing a tie. Eames thought he was going to be thrown out, but the maître d’ smiled at Arthur and said, “Did you have a reservation, Arthur? I didn’t notice you on the schedule.” 

“No reservation,” Arthur said without skipping a beat, “but I’d appreciate the favor.” And then Arthur slipped across what Eames was pretty sure was a fifty-pound note. 

What the _hell_ , thought Eames, surprised, was going on. 

The maître d’ took the bribe discreetly and cleared his throat and said, “Right this way, sir.” 

They were seated at a table for two and Arthur ordered a sparkling water and Eames, still not sure what was happening, said, “I’m fine with still, thanks.” 

Arthur leaned back in his seat and folded his arms and lifted a condemning eyebrow at Eames. 

Eames had the feeling he was being scolded. “Thanks,” he said, awkwardly but sincerely. “I mean, you didn’t need to, but—”

“You were outside the restaurant last night,” was what Arthur said. 

Eames blinked, caught completely off guard. “Um.”

“You’re following me. What are you? Paparazzi? I should have let you get whatever was coming to you in that alley, but I’d prefer to know first of all exactly what story you think you’re going to get out of me.” 

“I’m not _paparazzi_ ,” Eames protested, instinctively offended. “I do have _standards_.” 

Arthur looked at him. 

And then Arthur smiled. 

He had dimples. He had dimples, and bright eyes, and he _smiled_. And Eames felt like it was the first time, in all the research they’d been doing on Arthur, that he was seeing _Arthur_. 

“Oh,” he breathed, thinking, _There you are_. 

Arthur’s smile disappeared, and he looked self-conscious, as if he’d realized what he’d given away. 

The waiter arrived with their waters and Arthur said briskly, “We need more time before we can order,” and by the time the waiter left, Arthur had collected himself back into the cool, distant specimen Eames had been watching all this time. 

“If you’re not paparazzi,” he inquired calmly, “what are you?” 

Eames had dozens of answers to that question but he hadn’t been planning on starting the Arthur job and hadn’t determined what his best in would be, so he heard himself say the closest thing to the truth. “I’m an artist.” 

“An artist who’s following me around?” said Arthur skeptically. 

Eames was a gambler and an improviser, and he could bloody get himself through this. “Don’t you think planning a wedding is like creating a work of art?” he said. “Don’t you think you could use some help with it?” 

Arthur looked amused. “You’re a bit too late with that. The wedding’s in a week.” 

“And I think it could benefit from some last-minute panache,” said Eames, pitching with all his heart. 

Arthur shifted from amused to annoyed. “How much is Jonathan paying you?” 

Eames blinked. “Jonathan?” 

“Okay, fine, not Jonathan. His parents. Take a message back to them for me, would you? The wedding decorations are fucking _perfect_ , and they wouldn’t know style if it bit them in the ass.” Arthur stopped talking and closed his eyes and took a deep breath and said, “No. Wait. Don’t say that. Christ. How much can I pay you _not_ to say that to them? Tell them, I don’t know, I appreciate their help correcting my dismally plebeian tastes. Oh, Christ, don’t tell them that, either.” 

“Arthur,” said Eames, watching this little meltdown with concerned interest, “I think you need a shot.” 

Arthur burst into sudden laughter, the dimples very much in evidence. 

Eames’s eyes widened. He almost felt like he’d done something obscene, right here in the restaurant, so alarmingly intimate did the sound of Arthur’s laugh feel to him. Eames looked all around, but no one was paying them the least amount of attention. He looked cautiously back at Arthur. 

Arthur said, “You are absolutely right. Fuck, yes, I could use a shot.” Arthur waved a hand negligently in the air and said, “What’s your name?” 

“Eames. Just Eames. My first name is hideous.” 

“Bring us two shots of the best tequila you have here,” Arthur said to the waiter, who didn’t even blink at the request. Arthur turned back to Eames and said, “Wedding planning is a bitch, by the way. And I’d like to think you were hired to help me and take some of the pressure off, but I know very well what’s meant by ‘help’ in that instance. They haven’t stopped complaining about the fact that I didn’t want a whole room of gardenias. Did they tell you that’s what wanted? A whole entire fucking _room_ of gardenias?” 

Eames was confused. “But what would you do with a room of gardenias?” 

“Exactly!” said Arthur. “These are the people you’re working for.” 

“I’m not working for anyone,” said Eames, and maybe that wasn’t strictly true, but he wasn’t working for anyone in the way that Arthur thought. 

“Then what are you doing?” 

“Just a down-on-his-luck artist hoping to get some credit for the society wedding of the year,” Eames suggested, hoping it sounded at least vaguely plausible. 

The waiter arrived with the shots. 

Arthur threw his back immediately. 

Eames hesitated, then followed his example.

Arthur said, “Why do they keep saying that about the wedding? We should have just eloped. Are you married?” 

“No,” answered Eames. 

“When you get married, don’t do any of this wedding stuff. Just elope. Trust me on that.”

“Noted,” Eames said, and tried to smile at Arthur. 

“So what kind of art?” asked Arthur. 

His gaze was very intent and very unnerving. Christ, why did he have to have such beautiful eyes, Eames thought, distracted. 

“Um.” He tried to come up with a lie, then decided the truth might be better, because he could be intelligent about it. “It’s all about challenging the essential tradition that lies at the heart of contemporary life through the same media that we’ve been using for centuries because of mankind’s lack of creativity in moving forward and inability to establish new ideas and its tendency to fall into the same habitual patterns of self-destructive behavior that then undermines all progress and illustrates the circularity of all of time.” Eames stopped talking, feeling embarrassed. It was just that no one ever asked him about his art. 

Arthur said, deadpan, “Sounds perfect for a wedding.” 

Eames chuckled, then said, “It’s all about happiness, really. How to find happiness, and why humanity has traditionally been so terrible about it.” 

“You think we’re bad at finding happiness?” 

Eames held his gaze and said firmly, “Yes. I think we’re fucking rubbish at it. I think we never have any idea what would make us happy. I think we _think_ we know, and we grab in entirely the wrong direction, and then before we know it it’s too late to change it and find what really would make us happy.” 

Arthur dropped his gaze, clearing his throat and looking away and catching his mouth into a frown. 

He hadn’t been frowning, Eames realized. He missed the Arthur he’d found here who didn’t frown so much. 

But Eames also realized he had to press his advantage a little bit. “But that’s what you’re proving wrong with your wedding, isn’t it? Bucking the tragic trend of human history. Finding happiness.” 

“Yes,” said Arthur, and took a deep breath. “Right.” He looked back at Eames, all forward directness again, and said, “I’d like to see your art.” 

***

Eames thought this was a terrible idea. How had he gotten talked into this terrible idea? Except that he hadn’t been talked into anything. Arthur had just looked at him with his dark eyes and Eames had said, _Oh, yes, of course, let’s go see my art_. Like an _idiot_. 

“I know what this looks like,” Eames said, as Arthur, in his no-doubt thousand-pound suit, stepped over some scattered rubbish in the hallway on the way to Eames’s flat. 

“What it looks like is that you probably deal drugs on the side,” said Arthur wryly, choosing his steps carefully in his highly polished shoes. 

“I don’t,” Eames said truthfully. “I swear. Just…the light is good.” Eames finished unlocking his last deadbolt—it really _wasn’t_ a good neighborhood—and threw open his door. And he knew the building looked like hell, but the flat was really great, sort of a converted loft, with sky-high ceilings and a wall of windows. The view wasn’t much of anything, but the place was flooded with gorgeous light. 

Arthur walked in and said, “Oh,” and tipped his head back at the windows. 

“Hard to get light as good as this in the middle of London,” Eames explained. “Unless you’re a millionaire.”

“Yes,” Arthur said absently because he had already moved on to Eames’s art. 

The thing was that Eames allowed his art to colonize his flat. It was more the living place of his art than it was of him. Usually Eames had a boyfriend or a girlfriend whom he charmed into letting him stay over, and this was where he kept his art, stacked in huge piles, leaned against the wall. There was _a lot_ of art. 

And Eames didn’t show it to people. He’d never even shown it to Ariadne or Yusuf. He had no idea why he was showing it to Arthur. Yes, things had gotten a little out of control with Arthur, but he felt like he could have come up with some excuse—any excuse—not to end up here in his flat with Arthur with his hands in his pockets judging his art. 

But what Arthur said was, sounding surprised, “It’s good.” 

Eames bristled a little. “You don’t need to be condescending—”

“I’m not being condescending.” Arthur was shifting through piles of art now. “At least, I’m not trying to be. It’s really very good. Not that I’m an art critic or anything, but…I like it. I don’t know whether that actually means it’s good or what.” 

_He likes it_ , thought Eames. _Arthur likes it_. And why did that fill him with a warmth that curled through his body, head to toes? Ridiculous. 

Arthur looked up from the art and actually grinned at him. _Grinned_ at him. Eames was already feeling light-headed, and that didn’t help at all. “I don’t know if I would say it’s about happiness, though.” 

“Well.” Eames considered. “It makes _me_ happy.” 

Arthur made an amused, skeptical noise, studying the art some more. Almost like a snort but more adorable. He said, “You must be a challenging guy.” And then he looked up at Eames and smiled. 

Eames wasn’t sure but he could have sworn he felt a hook snagging deeply into his heart. 

***

Arthur hired him. 

Arthur _hired him_. 

Arthur asked him about his fee, and Eames felt so terrible at the whole thing that he turned down any fee at all and said that the publicity would be enough, and then Arthur handed him a business card and they set up a time to meet to talk about the wedding décor and how Eames might spruce it up, and _oh my God, what was he doing_. 

Eames had never just fallen into things like this before. He and Ariadne and Yusuf always meticulously planned everything. They had this whole thing down to a science. He was way off in the weeds here. 

Eames was in the process of tearing his way out of his flat to go in search of Ariadne and Yusuf when Olaf stepped in front of him. 

“Now that your little delaying stunt is over,” started Ludwig, calmly, from beside Olaf. 

Eames—thinking of Arthur, adorable Arthur, who lit up over his art and smiled at him and was so bored, Eames knew he was, and thinking of the mysterious Cobb in America with his payday offer—heard himself say, “Give me ten days and I’ll have all of it.” 

And when it was out of his mouth, he wanted to condemn himself for being the worst person on the planet. 

But he still emailed Cobb from the company email and said that he needed the fee to be upped to fifty, given how high profile the job was. 

***

“So,” Eames said, as he burst into the working flat. 

Ariadne and Yusuf were playing videogames and barely looked up at him. 

“Just a second,” Yusuf said. 

“We’re—” Ariadne began.

Eames shut off the television. 

Yusuf and Ariadne both complained loudly at him. 

Eames said, in a rush, “I’ve been hired to add art to Arthur and Jonathan’s wedding.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

Ariadne said, “ _What_?” 

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, okay? It just _did_.” 

“You just happened to get yourself hired to be right in the middle of a wedding that we agreed we weren’t going to interfere with?” Ariadne demanded. 

“Well, you were both wrong,” Eames snapped at them. “Arthur isn’t happy. Arthur’s bored out of his skull. Arthur doesn’t know it yet.” 

“Eames, we _agreed_ ,” Ariadne said hotly. “We _voted_. You know the rules—”

“I know. And I wasn’t going around the rules. I swear I wasn’t. We ran into each other and…we ended up going to lunch, and then he liked my art, and it, you know, snowballed.” 

“ _Eames_ ,” said Ariadne, looking despairing. “What did you do?” 

“I really didn’t do much of anything, I swear. And it turns out that I really am right about Arthur, he smiled at me a lot over lunch, he’s very funny, really, and he is _completely_ wasted on that Jonathan bloke, I know he is—”

“Eames,” Yusuf inserted. “You sound like a lunatic.” 

“I want you to take a deep breath and I want you to tell us exactly what happened. Every single thing.” 

Eames hesitated. Then he decided that now was probably the time to come clean, because maybe things were too serious now to ignore. He supposed when it got to the broken-finger-threatening part, it was over-your-head time. 

“I, um,” said Eames. 

Yusuf stared at him. 

Ariadne said sharply, “This is not inspiring a lot of confidence.” 

“I might…have…some…gambling debts,” said Eames. 

“Oh my God,” Yusuf groaned dramatically and collapsed backward because Yusuf was a drama queen. 

“How much?” Ariadne asked, girding herself as if for a major blow. 

“Thirty thousand.” 

“ _Thirty thousand_?” Ariadne shrieked, and leaped up and slapped him across his shoulder. 

Eames thought maybe he deserved that. 

“So anyway,” said Eames hastily. “Moving on. I was outside Arthur’s building—”

“And why were you outside Arthur’s building?” Yusuf asked, as if he was dreading the answer. 

“I wasn’t going to make contact with him. I was going to spy on him a little bit more and prove you lot were wrong when you voted against me. But then I kind of got myself threatened in the alley by Arthur’s building—”

“Oh my _God_ ,” said Ariadne. 

“—and Arthur was outside having a cigarette and came to my rescue. And then he took me to lunch. And then we were talking about art and he…hired me to consult for his wedding.” 

Ariadne and Yusuf just stared at him. For a long time. 

“Say something,” said Eames finally. 

“I am going to _kill_ you,” Ariadne said. 

Yusuf said, “Well, I guess we’d better get some kind of plan in place.” 

Ariadne sighed and went over to the laptop and then said, in surprise, “Eames, did you send an email asking Cobb for thirty thousand more?” 

“Well,” said Eames. “Might as well, right?” 

“He _agreed_ ,” said Ariadne in disbelief. 

“Oh, excellent.” Eames beamed. “We make a lot of money and save Arthur from a lifetime of unhappiness. This job gets better and better.” 

***

There was an Arthur board in their flat, with all of their surveillance synthesized together. Eames sat in front of it, and Ariadne, as was traditional, walked him through it. 

“He likes designer clothing. He is a snappy dresser. So you need to start dressing better.” 

Eames mused at the photographs. “He dresses well, but he dresses creatively. He’ll appreciate the paisley.” 

“Nobody appreciates paisley, Eames,” sighed Ariadne.

“I appreciate paisley,” Eames pointed out. 

“Can’t argue with that,” commented Yusuf. 

“No comments from the peanut gallery,” said Ariadne. 

“That’s you, Yusuf,” Eames explained. 

“Whatever, I’m happily playing Angry Birds,” said Yusuf. 

“Getting back to work,” Ariadne said loudly. “He likes neat hair, so you should start gelling your hair back, Eames.” 

“Fine,” Eames said. “He’s a smoker. You don’t have anything up here about how he’s a smoker.”

“Because he’s not a smoker.” 

Eames thought of the expert way that cigarette had dangled torturously off of Arthur’s delicious-looking mouth. “He’s definitely a smoker.” 

“Then he’s a closet smoker,” Ariadne said. 

“Probably his stick-in-the-mud fiancé made him quit,” said Eames. 

“What about the investment banker you’re stalking makes you think he’s not a stick in the mud?” asked Yusuf.

“The fact that he faced down a huge hulking human for a stranger,” said Eames. 

“No, Eames is actually right about that,” agreed Ariadne. “Arthur has hidden depths.”

“Hidden depths?” echoed Eames. 

“Or at least hidden interests. He’s a laser tag aficionado.” 

Eames blinked at her. “Is that something people are aficionados of?” 

Ariadne shrugged. “Your Arthur is.” 

Eames frowned. “He isn’t my— So, what, he’s on a team or something?” 

“Oh, no. He’s a loner. No team sports for him. No family, no friends.” 

“He has friends. He has the Cobbs.” 

“Yusuf can’t figure out how the Cobbs know Arthur.” 

Eames turned his frown to Yusuf. “What do you mean?” 

“There is a huge pocket of his life that is one great big black hole,” said Yusuf. 

“How does that happen?” asked Eames, confused. 

“I have no idea. Probably he was in a hippie commune somewhere, totally off the grid. Or he was working for the CIA.” 

Eames thought of Arthur in the alleyway, completely uncowed. “Well. He _does_ play laser tag.” 

“He isn’t CIA,” snapped Ariadne. “My God, I need to make you guys stop watching all those stupid action movies.” 

“Hey!” said Yusuf, affronted. 

“They are not stupid!” Eames protested at the same time. 

Ariadne lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fine, fine, whatever. Can we get back to the matter at hand? You’re out of luck because Arthur likes French cinema, not action movies. He’s actually a bit of a Francophile: French movies, French food, when he’s not working, his preferred vacation is apparently the French Riviera. Do you speak French, Eames?” 

“No,” Eames admitted, wondering how quickly he could learn. 

Ariadne, dejected, collapsed backward into a chair. “Our entire future is resting on _this_ job, and this is, by far, the hardest job we’ve ever had: He’s a happy guy in a perfect relationship and he’s never going to fall for you.” 

Eames looked at the board, where there was photo after photo of Arthur, grim and unsmiling. Eames thought of Arthur’s grin, Arthur’s dimples. He said, “I’m telling you, Ari: He’s definitely not happy.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

They were meeting at Arthur’s flat, and Eames was bracing himself for Jonathan being there, but when he got there all he saw was Arthur. 

The place was huge and incredibly modern, the living space completely open-concept and with huge windows overlooking the Thames. It was sparsely furnished with sleek, uninviting furniture and the bare minimum of generic modern art on the walls that must have hidden the bedroom. Eames, looking at it, wondered how Arthur could ever have pretended to like any of Eames’s art, which was vastly cluttered and chaotic compared to how _clean_ and _crisp_ everything Arthur was surrounded by was. 

“Red or white?” Arthur called from the kitchen. 

“Whatever you’ve got open,” said Eames, and stopped looking at the art because it was making him nervous, turning his attention to the windows instead. 

“Good light for painting?” Arthur asked, coming over and handing him a glass of red wine. 

Eames smiled faintly. He felt severely off-kilter and out of his league, and maybe Yusuf and Ariadne were right and he was never going to pull this off. “Probably,” he said, because it was twilight at the moment. “Your fiancé’s not joining us?” 

Arthur sipped from his glass of wine and shook his head. “Working late. And he’s left wedding prep to me. I’m the one with taste, he says.” 

Eames glanced around the cold, frigid flat. It was undeniably stylish, but it was also _harsh_. What sort of wedding would a man with taste like this design? “Yeah,” he said. “This place is nice.” 

Arthur gave him a shuttered look and then said, “Let me get out the wedding files.” 

Arthur was not joking: He pulled a door back in the wall to reveal a hidden shelving unit and then he pulled out _literal files_ that he walked over to place on the dining table that was at the opposite end of the room. 

Eames looked at them in amazement. “You have wedding _dossiers_.” 

Arthur flipped through a couple and then said, “Oh. Oops. Sorry, these are the dossiers on the people I want to have killed. Wrong dossiers. Fuck, I hate when that happens.” He punctuated his speech with a dramatic sigh. And then he looked up at Eames and smiled, all dimples and twinkling eyes. 

Eames chuckled. “Easy mistake to make,” rejoined Eames. “You should try color-coding. Red for the wedding,” Eames walked over to join Arthur by the table. 

“For the wedding?’ said Arthur quizzically. 

“Well, yes,” said Eames. “The color of love.” 

“I was thinking it was the color of blood,” said Arthur, and shrugged. 

“Good point. It’s possible red wouldn’t clarify things.” Eames reached out to the first dossier and pulled it open. 

Arthur was astonishingly organized. But Eames supposed he should have guessed this already. He had impeccably researched every single aspect of the wedding he was throwing. And “research” was the right word for it. Arthur sat opposite him and told him stats on how popular certain things were, what surveys revealed the impressions held by the public on certain wedding choices to be, historical studies on the profiles of the types of couples who had white roses—classic—versus bright pink daisies—risqué. Arthur talked and talked and talked, and all of it was, _I found out_ and _I learned_ and _My research showed_. 

Arthur never once said, _I like_. Arthur talked all about a wedding he’d planned, and Arthur apparently hadn’t made a single choice just because he liked it. 

“What?” Arthur said finally, sounding exasperated. 

“What?” Eames said in response, startled at being so suddenly addressed. 

“You’re staring at me. What is it?” Arthur asked impatiently. 

Eames hesitated, unsure. The truth was, normally he broke up couples according to very careful plans, and he had no idea what he was doing when it came to Arthur and Jonathan. He had zero plan. So he supposed he might as well say what he was thinking. “Do you like this wedding?” 

Arthur drew in on himself. Eames could practically see the spikes emerging as he closed his armor around him. “What does that mean?” 

“I don’t know. You tell me. You’ve planned a wedding that you’ve very thoroughly researched to be praised as elegant and lovely by the highest proportion of cultured and sophisticated people. You’ve got a literal bloody _algorithm_ to prove that you’ll impress the highest number of people. But I haven’t heard you actually say that you like any of this.” 

“I like all of it,” Arthur snapped. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t like it.” Arthur started gathering his dossiers together. He was being sloppy with the papers, and Eames sensed immediately that it was because he was upset, that Arthur was not normally like that, because it was obvious Arthur was normally extremely precise. 

Eames said honestly, “Sorry. I’m sorry. Hey.” He reached out a hand and put it over Arthur’s, stilling them on his papers. “I’m sorry. It’s lovely. It’s all so lovely I don’t know what my art could ever do to improve it.” 

Arthur was silent for a moment, looking at their hands. Then he carefully extracted his from underneath Eames’s and said, looking up at him, “It’s going to be the rogue element.” 

***

Eames got home from Arthur’s thrumming with nervous energy and told himself it wasn’t from unreleased sexual tension (although it was possible the first thing he did when he got back to his flat was take a shower). 

He put out canvases and tried to paint art that would complement Arthur’s oh-so-chic wedding and got bloody nowhere. 

“Fuck,” he said, and put his hands in his hair and tried not to think about the thirty thousand pounds he owed if he fucked this up and also how he was obviously going to fuck it up because Arthur was a little bundle of contradictions—incredibly _hot_ contradictions—and Eames had no sodding idea how he was going to…

Eames looked at his art all around him, thought of how genuinely delighted by it Arthur had seemed. Not an expression Eames had seen at any point over the wedding dossiers. He thought of Arthur’s slyly playful suits. He thought of laser tag. 

Eames, following a hunch, pulled out his laptop. 

***

Eames paced up and down his flat, considering. Ring Arthur? Swing by his work again? Be loitering outside his building? Which seemed less creepy?

In the end he texted. 

_what r u doing 2night_

Then he put the mobile down and fretted so much over the response that he actually got up and walked into his kitchen and poured himself a shot of vodka, which he tossed back to calm his fucking nerves. Christ, you would have thought he was a teenager. 

His mobile chimed. 

Eames stared at it, swallowed thickly, then walked over to check it. 

_It took me a little while, but I believe I’ve cracked your cunning code and that you’re asking me what I’m doing tonight. Dinner with Jonathan. Why?_

Of course dinner with Jonathan. That made sense. Arthur was a man in a relationship, he wasn’t pathetic like Eames sitting around doing nothing all night every night. 

Then Eames read the text over and frowned. 

_what the fuck kind of text is that_ , he texted back. And then, _it has a comma_. And, _who puts commas in texts_

Arthur’s response was, _There’s a comma button on the phone. Why would they give you a comma button if you weren’t supposed to use it?_

Eames didn’t even know what to make of that. He shook his head and sighed and said, _what about 2morrow_

Arthur’s response was, _Are you asking me questions? It’s hard to tell, given your stance against punctuation._

Eames frowned at the text and was in the process of replying to it when another chimed in. 

_Over the course of several centuries of written communication, humans have developed a particular symbol to illustrate an inquisitive tone. It looks like this: ???????????_

Eames texted back, _u r possibly the biggest prick ive ever met_

_Is that another question?_

Eames texted, _exclamation point !_ And then _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_I’ve decided to just embrace your discovery of one form of punctuation. We’ll work on the rest. What did you want for tonight?_

Eames responded, _just wedding stuff_ and _it can wait_

_It can’t wait too long_ , came Arthur’s text in response. _What about tomorrow afternoon? I can make time._

Eames wanted to tell Arthur not to go to any trouble, but at the same time he knew he didn’t have much time to waste. So he texted back: _perfect_. And then, because he thought Arthur would hate it, _:)_

_What the fuck is that fucking terrifying thing?_ Arthur texted back. 

_its a face smiling at u_ , Eames responded. _look how much it likes u :) :) :)_

_That is not how you use punctuation_ , came Arthur’s response. _This is an alarming travesty._

Eames realized he was grinning like a loon. He texted back, _go lie down darling u sound unwell._

He hit _send_ before he even realized the term of endearment was in there, and then he wanted it back wildly. The panic was so all-encompassing that Eames thought the vodka he’d thrown back might make an abrupt reappearance. 

But Arthur just texted back, _Can’t. In a meeting._

Eames gulped down a few deep breaths and considered and then texted, _and ur texting me? shame on u!_

_Look at all the punctuation in that!_ came Arthur’s reply. _You even used a question mark properly! Well done!_ And, _It’s a boring meeting._

Eames leaned back on his sofa and forgot all about his art. He thought he should have got a glass of wine or something to keep him company if he was going to spend all afternoon flirting with Arthur via text. _oh am i meant 2b entertaining u_

_You’re just keeping me awake with your horrifying texts_ , Arthur replied. _They get my adrenaline going._

Eames typed, _lets see what else i can do 2 get ur adrenaline going_ , then deleted it, biting on his lip. He stared up at the ceiling, considering. Then he typed a new text. _whats ur favourite colour_

_This is your idea of entertaining me?_ came Arthur’s reply. 

“Fine,” huffed Eames at the screen, and thought. Really what he thought was, Why wasn’t Arthur texting his fiancé to keep him company through this boring meeting? But Eames supposed that he had just happened to text him at the right time. Eames took a deep breath and carefully typed, _i wanted 2 know ur fav colour 4 the wedding art but instead we can talk about when we lost our virginity if u want_

There was a pause before the response, and Eames chewed on his lower lip and wondered if he’d gone too far and contemplated just bringing the bottle of vodka over to him. 

Then: _What makes you think I’ve lost it? I resent your implication._

Eames thought of how coolly collected and terrifying Arthur had looked in that alleyway, giving even Ludwig pause. He snorted and texted back, _true when i think of u i think of purely driven snow_

Eames’s phone chimed. 

_Gray._

And then: _You need to ask your second question with a little more specificity for me._

Eames’s fingers tapped over the keys of his mobile, and then he thought that he was a lunatic, he was definitely not going to ask the first dates that Arthur had engaged in a variety of sex acts, he was losing his _mind_. He had already crossed more lines with Arthur than he ever normally did. 

So Eames took a deep breath and deleted every lewd thing he’d just typed up and regarded the text before that one. 

Then he frowned and typed: _no 1s fav colour is gray_

_Mine is_ , came the reply text immediately. And then, after a pause, _I think it really brings out the best in a more vibrant color like purple._

Purple, thought Eames. Arthur’s favorite color was purple. Eames glanced at his art. There were a few canvases with heavy violet undertones, so he thought those might work. 

His phone chimed and he looked down at it.

_Why were you being threatened in the alley that day?_

Eames hesitated. Then he typed a careful response. _dont worry about it_

_I don’t want any violent deaths associated with my wedding._

Eames chuckled. _no violent deaths_ , he promised. 

_If you’re in trouble I can help._

Eames tried to remember if anyone had offered to help as overtly as Arthur just had. Yusuf and Ariadne would help him, he knew, but they knew him and they were also going to frown at him a lot first. Arthur just wrapped an offer of help up in one irresistible text. 

_im ok_ , Eames texted. _thx though_

_Are you trying to thank me? Is that what “thx” is meant to be?_

Eames smiled. _i can hear u sighing heavily from here_

_Good_ , was Arthur’s reply. And then, _My meeting’s over. Thank you for the company. I’ll call you about tomorrow._

Eames was tremendously disappointed. Eames wanted to spend all day texting with Arthur. Possibly all day every day. That was alarming. 

He forced himself to remind himself of the situation with Arthur, texting, _have fun w jonathan_

Arthur never responded. 

***

Until Arthur responded. 

Eames was in the middle of painting a purple and gray canvas for Arthur when his phone rang. He looked at it, surprised, since it was nearly ten o’clock and he wasn’t expecting anyone to ring him. And then he saw who was calling. And then he almost knocked over his paints hurrying for it, grabbing it just before it cut to voicemail. 

“Hello,” he said hastily. “Hi. Arthur?” 

“You have an enthusiastic phone-answering technique,” said Arthur after a moment. 

“Yeah, I… Clearly I’m better at texting.”

“And that’s really not saying much,” said Arthur drily. “What are you doing?” 

Eames had no idea what to make of this. Was it just Arthur making small talk? “I’m… Nothing.” Eames looked at the painting, which could definitely wait. “I’m not really doing anything.” 

“Whatever you wanted to do tonight. Can we do it?” 

“It’s a bit late,” said Eames, because it was. “We kind of need it not to be so late.” 

“Right,” sighed Arthur. “I figured.” 

“I thought you were going to dinner with Jonathan,” said Eames, as casually as he could make it, as if he didn’t care at all whether or not that happened. 

“I did. He had to go back to work. All the starving children of the world don’t feed themselves, you know.” 

_Not happy_ , thought Eames. Arthur was the farthest thing from happy. Yusuf and Ariadne were idiots. 

“Do you want to go out and do something?” Eames asked. 

“Yes,” said Arthur swiftly. “Definitely.” 

***

Eames had no plan for where to take Arthur. He called Ariadne as he got ready, putting on the new totally coordinated suit he’d bought, because he figured he’d give this whole “posh dressing” thing a try. 

“Someplace fancy,” Ariadne said, yawning because Eames had woken her because Ariadne was apparently 75 years old and went to bed at 8. “Mmm. What about _L’orifice_?” 

Eames blinked, alarmed. “What the hell is that?” 

“Oh, Eames, you’re hopeless. It’s a fancy French place in Notting Hill. They’ve got this fabulous raw bar with all these oysters. Aphrodisiacs, you know. Arthur’ll love it.” 

“This place is called _L’orifice_ and it’s not a filthy gay bar? Are you sure?” 

“You can get away with anything if you say it in French.”

Eames shrugged and gelled his hair back to match Arthur’s style. “I guess so. Fine. I’ll meet him there.” 

“Let me know how it goes,” said Ariadne sleepily, and hung up. 

Eames texted Arthur as he walked out the door. _do u no lorifice_

Arthur responded, _L’orifice?_

Probably, thought Eames, and then, _yes u no i dont use punctuation_

_I know it_ , came Arthur’s response. 

_c u there in 15_.

***

Arthur was already at _L’Orifice_ when Eames got there twenty minutes later. The restaurant was one of those fashionably dark, rich places, and Eames drew to a halt when he caught sight of Arthur. He was sitting at the bar, and he had a glass of something in front of him, and he looked…glum. Eames was behind him but could make out his reflection in the artfully antiqued mirror that backed the bar. Arthur looked sad, unhappy, resigned. Arthur looked _bored_. 

Well, of course he was bored, thought Eames uncertainly. Eames hadn’t arrived yet. 

Eames took a deep breath, walked over, slid into the seat next to him, grinned at him, and said, “ _Bonjour_.” 

Arthur lifted his eyebrows at Eames and said, “What the fuck are you wearing?” 

Eames was a little offended because the suit had been _expensive_. “Don’t you like it?” 

Arthur took a large swallow of whatever he was drinking and said, “It’s fine. It’s very classic. Not paisley. It’s good.” 

Eames looked at Arthur, as he drained the rest of his drink, and something itched in the back of his mind. Arthur was bored. Arthur was bored to _death_. 

Fuck Ariadne’s plan, thought Eames. 

He leaned closer to Arthur, startling him, and said, “Arthur, darling, do you think I frequent _L’orifice_?” 

Arthur looked as if he didn’t know what was happening. And Eames liked that look a lot better than the bored, resigned one. “You chose this place.” 

“To throw you off, of course,” said Eames heartily, and he was going _so_ off-book, flying completely without a net, and he didn’t care, it was going to be glorious, he could sense it. He slid off his chair and said, “Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.” 

“The surprise?” echoed Arthur. 

“ _Allons-y_ ,” said Eames, pleased with himself, and swept out of the bar. 

Arthur followed him. 

***

Arthur didn’t say a single word. Not until they were standing directly in front of the pool hall. Arthur tipped his head back and looked at the garish, flashing sign and said, “Pool?” 

Eames smiled, smug with his delight. “There are a few rules.” 

“I know the rules of pool.”

“Not the rules of pool. Other rules.” 

Arthur lifted an eyebrow at him. “Such as?” 

“No ties,” Eames said, and reached out and tugged Arthur’s off of him. 

Arthur lifted his other eyebrow to meet the first and then returned the favor on Eames’s tie. 

Eames grinned. “No jackets,” he said, and nudged Arthur’s off and tried not to think of how much this was like undressing him. 

Arthur shrugged it off impatiently and said, “Come here,” and for a wild moment Eames thought he was about to kiss him, but then Arthur just reached up and unbuttoned Eames’s shirt a few buttons and adjusted the collar. “ _Much_ better,” he said. “You looked absolutely ridiculous all buttoned up like that.” 

“You’re always all buttoned up,” Eames pointed out. 

“I wear it better,” Arthur responded simply and then suddenly reached out and put his _hand_ in Eames’s _hair_. 

Eames was too astonished to _move_ as Arthur’s deft fingers walked this way and that over his scalp. Really, Eames was concentrating on not falling into a heap at Arthur’s feet. 

“How much gel did you put in here?” Arthur frowned. 

“Look who’s talking,” Eames retorted, and managed to tangle his hand into Arthur’s hair. Except that Arthur’s gel was clearly the expensive type that gave way for Eames softly instead of stickily, and suddenly Eames was looking at a tie-less, jacket-less Arthur with a tumble of curls over his forehead, and Eames’s breath caught. Because Arthur was delicious when he was pulled together but like this he seemed practically _obscene_ , like something Eames should never have let out of his flat. And he was watching Eames with his eyes wide and dark and his lips slightly parted, and Eames stood with his fingers caught up in Arthur’s sudden curls and tried to remember how to breathe. 

“Do the rules not allow gel, either?” asked Arthur, and his voice was so low Eames took a step closer to him, thinking that such intimacy required much less distance. 

“You started that,” Eames pointed out, barely a murmur. 

Arthur breathed, harsh and quick, and then he took a step away, and Eames’s hand fell out of his hair. 

“Come on,” Arthur said. “Show me your side of the tracks.”


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The place was crowded but not appallingly so, and Eames procured them a pool table and then stopped to get them pints. He walked back from the bar to find Arthur leaning against their table, arms folded, watching the game at the table next to them, and he was so impossibly beautiful that Eames thought he was being an idiot. There was no way someone like _that_ was going to fall for Eames, even for the moment needed to wake up and realize how unhappy he was. The futility of everything Eames was doing burst over him. 

Then Arthur shifted and caught sight of him and smiled, a ghost of those dimples appearing, and Eames thought that he didn’t care. How often did a person like Eames get to spend any time at all in the vicinity of someone as breathtaking as Arthur? Eames was going to enjoy every sodding minute of this. 

“Do you want to break?” he asked Arthur graciously, as he came up to him. 

“Kind of you,” said Arthur, reaching for a cue. 

“Well, you’re the guest.” 

“The guest?”

“In this country.” 

Arthur quirked a smile at him and leaned over the table and broke so beautifully that Eames wished he’d been filming it for posterity. 

“Stripes or solids?” Eames asked him, because Arthur had sunk both. 

“Stripes,” Arthur said negligently, chalking his cue and looking over the table with narrowed eyes. 

And then he _ran the fucking table_. 

When he was done, calling the eight ball in a showy shot that had him leaning over the table and his trousers cupping his arse, he looked at Eames and Eames could think of nothing to say but, mouth dry with almost uncontrollable lust, “Fuck.” 

“Show me what you’ve got, Mr. Eames,” said Arthur with a smirk, and pressed the cue into Eames’s hand. 

Eames was a good pool player, but Arthur was clearly a spectacular one and that was annoying because Eames admitted that maybe he’d brought Arthur here to show off a little. Mostly it had been to shake Arthur out of his bored comfort zone, but clearly all he’d done was plug Arthur back into a different, less boring comfort zone. 

“Where did you learn to play pool like that?’ 

Arthur looked so smug that Eames wanted to lick that stupid, adorable dimple in his cheek. “I am a man of many hidden talents,” he purred demurely. 

“I fucking bet,” remarked Eames, as he set the table back up. “You’re also a show-off.” Eames lined up his shot. 

“Undoubtedly,” said Arthur. “Look at how tight I wear my pants.” 

Eames’s cue slipped, tapping the cue ball the barest amount to the left. 

“My turn,” said Arthur cheekily. 

Oh, so that was how it was, thought Eames, making way for Arthur and thinking that two could definitely play that game. 

Arthur leaned over the table, lining up his shot, and Eames waited until he swung his cue back before learning forward and scraping his teeth along the exposed skin on Arthur’s lovely neck. 

Arthur made a sound like a squeak and sent the cue ball completely careening off the table, disturbing the game next door. The men playing turned and frowned at them as Arthur hurried over to retrieve the ball. 

“Sorry,” Eames called to them cheerfully. “My boyfriend’s first time playing pool.” 

Arthur came back over with the cue ball and murmured, “What the hell was that?” 

“We play games, or we play pool.” 

“Do you want to hustle them?” 

Eames blinked, surprised, and then glanced over at the table next to them, considering. “I would fucking love to. Can you pull this off?” 

“Let’s have that be the last time you insult me tonight,” said Arthur, still keeping his voice low. Then he put the cue ball in entirely the wrong place and said loudly, “Sweetie, where did you say I had to put my hands on the stick?” 

He was attracting attention again. Eames smiled sunnily at the next table over and said, “He’s hopeless.” 

“Well, you said it would be like a hand job,” Arthur pouted, “and it’s totally not. I’m _good_ at those.” 

Eames had the sudden, crystal-clear thought that he was bloody head-over-heels in love with Arthur and this was all going to end very badly. He said to their onlookers, “He’s got a point,” and winked broadly at them. 

They stared at him. 

Eames leaned over Arthur and breathed into his ear, “It’s possible you’re the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.” 

“Probable,” Arthur corrected him. “Now be a good boyfriend and show me how to play pool.” 

***

“Not a bad night,” said Arthur, and smiled at him a little tipsily. 

“Not a bad night?” Eames echoed disbelievingly. “There’s thousands here.” He gestured to Arthur’s neat piles of pound notes, which he’d spread over the bar table in between them. They may have had to basically flee the pool hall, but it had been worth it. 

“Mmm, lovely, isn’t it?” said Arthur. “But barely a dent in what you owe that shady Russian mafia guy from the alley, I bet.” 

Eames ignored him. “Oi!” he called to the bloke behind the bar, a man Eames knew well from his frequent patronage of this place. “Drinks for everyone on me!” 

A round of cheers went up in the bar. 

Arthur looked exasperated, but in a fond way that made Eames feel warm all over. “I sense you’re hopeless with money.” 

“And I sense you’re brilliant with it. Arthur. Let’s take our show on the road.” Eames meant it at that moment. Meant it earnestly and seriously. He wanted to live this life with Arthur every night for the rest of his life. 

“What show would this be?” Arthur looked amused. “The pool hustling show?” 

“Fuck, yes, we are the _best_ at it. Tell me we’re not the best.” 

“We had room for improvement.” 

“You’re an extremely annoying person.” 

“I also have a high-powered, high-paying job, and I’m getting married next week in the society wedding of the year, remember?” 

Eames hadn’t remembered. Eames had completely forgotten. Eames felt the bottom fall out of his perfect night like a heavy boulder landing in his stomach. Harry brought over their round of pints, and Arthur thanked him and sipped his and generally looked as if he had never once forgotten who he was and what he was going to do with his life, whereas Eames had forgotten it entirely. 

“So you come here a lot?” said Arthur. 

“Yeah, I… Yeah.” Why had he _brought_ Arthur here? He never did this, never let his real life bleed over into the fake parts he played for his job. 

Except he wasn’t playing a part. This job was entirely about being himself. This job was a _disaster_. 

And then Eames said, “Wait, how did you know?” as it occurred to him. 

“Because that’s one of your paintings.” Arthur nodded at it as he sipped his pint. 

Eames turned and looked at it. He’d actually forgotten it was there. And how had Arthur recognized it?

“How did you know that?” Eames asked suspiciously. 

Arthur looked surprised at the suspicion. “Because it looks like your art.” 

As if Arthur had paid such close attention that he could pick out his art anywhere? Eames didn’t even let himself think such foolish nonsense. 

Arthur fidgeted opposite him for some reason, which became clear when he extracted his mobile from the jacket he had draped across his lap. He looked down at it, and Eames saw it, the moment of hesitation Arthur had. Eames could wriggle into that moment of hesitation, build an entire castle of hope based on it. 

Then Arthur answered. “Yeah,” he said. And then, “No, I’m fine. Remember the artist I mentioned I was going to work with for the wedding?” There was another pause. Eames watched Arthur listen, watched Arthur watch his fingers fidget with his pint glass and then, seeming to realize what he was doing, stop, forcing his fingers straight and calm and still. “No problem,” said Arthur. And, “I’ll see you then. Have a safe flight.” And, “Me, too.” 

And then Arthur hung up his phone and tucked it back away and smiled at Eames and said, “Sorry about that.” 

Eames was feeling morose. He’d just had a fantastic night with an incredibly hot bloke who was fun and clever and _getting married to someone else next week_. And his _job_ was to break up this wedding. And Arthur had no idea. Arthur just thought they were having a bit of wild-oat-sowing fun. 

Eames said, “I’ve kept you out too late.” 

Arthur said, “No, he’s got to run to France for business. He was just calling to tell me.” 

Eames had gleaned that a trip must have been in order. “He didn’t want you to go?” asked Eames. 

Arthur looked confused. “Why would I go with him on a business trip? I have things to do here.” 

Eames wanted to say: _You should go with him on a business trip because it would be spontaneous and nonsensical and you need that. You need to do things like that, you need to be pushed out of this life you’re in, because you are bored to death and you need to remember what it feels like to be alive. Go to France with your fiancé and remember why you fell in love with him. Don’t stay here being spontaneous with me, I am the wrong person to be spontaneous with._

And then Arthur said, “Tell me that it isn’t drugs.” 

Eames blinked, startled. “What?” He had no idea what Arthur was talking about. 

“The thing with the gangsters in the alley. Tell me it doesn’t have to do with drugs.” 

“Gangsters?” Eames echoed, amused. 

Arthur gave him an impatient look. “What would you like to call them? Threatening businessmen with questionable morals?” 

“But, Arthur, darling, that could describe you,” said Eames smoothly. 

Arthur smiled, slow and sharp and so vicious that Eames felt the slice of it clean through to his soul, and it was possible he whimpered in reaction and took a hasty sip of his pint to cover it. 

“It’s not drugs,” he said, putting the pint back down. “Are you very bothered by drugs? You, the nicotine addict?” 

“Addictions don’t bother me, as a general rule, as long as you are in control of the addiction,” said Arthur. 

“That’s not the definition of an addiction,” Eames pointed out. 

“Hence why I would say, very firmly, I am definitely not a nicotine addict.” 

Eames regarded him. “No, I think you’re addicted to something else entirely.” 

Arthur’s eyes were hooded and inscrutable. He said, “Drugs are messy and make you less than who you are. A cigarette never killed anybody.” 

“That is actually the opposite of true,” Eames said. 

“You know what I mean.”

“What would you do if I said it was drugs?” Eames asked quizzically, bemused by Arthur’s solemnness. 

“Get you into rehab.” 

“I think you might have a savior complex.” 

“Worse things to be addicted to. So what is it? What was the money for?” 

Eames hesitated, then he said truthfully, “Gambling.” 

“Oh, _Eames_ ,” said Arthur. “That is so…distressingly _predictable_.” 

“Shut up,” Eames said, affronted. “If it’s so predictable, then why’d you have to ask? And it’s not a big thing. Just, you know, a few bad rolls of the die. It’ll work itself out.” 

“Gambling isn’t luck, gambling is skill. You should be better at cheating.” 

“Arthur, who the fuck _are_ you?” said Eames bluntly, because he had no idea. His head was whirling at all the contradictions of Arthur right now. 

“I’m an investment banker,” said Arthur, with a silky smile that said the exact opposite. 

“Monte Carlo,” said Eames suddenly. 

“What?” 

“When you go to the French Riviera, you’re not going to St. Tropez. You’re going to Monte Carlo.” 

“How do you know I go to the French Riviera?’ asked Arthur, eyes narrowed. 

“I don’t,” Eames recovered. “You just seem like the type. And it’s closer than Vegas, right?” 

“Have you ever been to Monte Carlo?” asked Arthur. 

“I fucking love Monte Carlo,” Eames said. “Hence why I owe so much money to threatening businessmen with questionable morals.” 

Arthur chuckled and shook his head and said, “Eames, Eames, Eames,” with his voice all soft and _molten_ , and Eames took another sip from his pint to keep from whimpering again. And then Arthur reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a red die that he held up showily. His other hand covered a pile of cash. “This stack. What do you think I’m going to roll?” 

Eames regarded the die, and then looked at Arthur’s deep, dark eyes, wolfish and sharklike all at once. Arthur was way more of a predator than Ludwig was ever going to be, thought Eames. Arthur was a predator _instinctively_ , at the heart of himself, when you peeled away all of the prettiness Arthur put on to cover it up. That was why Arthur had gorgeous clothing and slicked-back hair and said his favorite color was gray. Arthur said he liked French caviar and expensive elegant weddings because Arthur was playing a part so bloody hard that he was going to crack and shatter spectacularly eventually. 

Or he would never crack and shatter spectacularly and he would just live the rest of his life with the real him lurking underneath, covered up with silk ties and Oxford shirts. 

Eames said, “You tell me what it always rolls.” 

Arthur smiled, another sharp slicing smile with no hint of warmth, no dimples, and Eames liked when Arthur smiled with the dimples but he kind of wanted to fucking _attack_ him when he smiled like that, just pull that danger out of him, kiss him with it there at the tips of their tongues, red and bloody and slick. He said, “You’re learning,” and then, “Four,” and then tossed the die. 

It rolled four. Arthur let go of the pile of money and tucked the die back into his trousers. 

“You carry a loaded die around with you,” Eames remarked. “What the fuck, are you hustling kids out on the street or something?” 

Arthur laughed. It was a laugh with dimples. Arthur could switch on a dime from the most dangerous man Eames had ever sat opposite to _bloody adorable, Jesus Christ_. He said, “It’s for luck.”

“I thought gambling wasn’t about luck.” 

“Gambling isn’t,” said Arthur. “Life is.” 

Eames looked across at Arthur and said suddenly, “Jonathan doesn’t know you smoke, does he?” 

“I don’t smoke,” said Arthur. 

“Jonathan doesn’t know you sometimes light up a cigarette in an alley when you’re bored.” Arthur’s eyes, so dark, so unreadable, were on his, and Eames felt like he’d tipped into some kind of advantage, like Arthur wasn’t going to look away now, no matter what. Eames shifted, and somehow everything about that shifting brought him into contact with Arthur, their feet under the table, their hands on top, just a slide of his little finger against Arthur’s wrist. He said, and he was _shocked_ at how fucking low his own voice sounded, like they were in the middle of a shag instead of sitting in this pub together, “Does he know how bloody _bored_ you are, Arthur?” 

Arthur wasn’t breathing. Eames could tell. He was leaned across the table, as far as he was going to go. He needed Arthur to close the gap. He needed Arthur to do it because Arthur wanted to, because Arthur wanted _him_. 

And then Arthur moved. Then Arthur fucking _snapped_. Away from Eames, away from the intimacy, away from all of it, with the violence of a dam giving way, and not in the way Eames had wanted it to. Arthur slid away, pulling his coat up and on, and his voice was cold and furious. “You know _nothing_ about it. What entitles you to think that you can— You’ve known me a grand total of— You see all of this?” Arthur gestured to his neat stacks of money, and then he swept them off the table, where they fluttered to the floor. Everyone in the pub was looking at them, Eames could feel it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Arthur, resplendent in his fury, and Eames thought this was okay, in a way, because it was still Arthur being _Arthur_ , because he hadn’t shut himself down and away. “I can do that. Because it means _nothing_ to me. You had the night of your life because you can’t imagine anything better than this, but this was a little excursion for me, Eames, and now I’m going back to my life, because it is a good, magnificent, _fucking spectacular_ life. What were you making this out to be, in your head? Because we played a game tonight. And I won. Because you’re a really fucking terrible gambler.” 

Eames thought he ought to say something, but he felt a little bit like Arthur had sucked all of the air out of the room, and he couldn’t wrap his mind around what words he would use. He didn’t know what words he _wanted_ to use. He wanted to say, _You’re wrong, that’s not true, you hate your life, and you liked this_ , and he also wanted to say, _You’re right, it was a game, and I’m playing with you, and I’m supposed to smash up that life you’re going back to, and I think you want me to, don’t you want me to?_

And in the end he said nothing because Arthur turned on his heel and stalked out of the pub, and Eames stared after him, numb and…unsure if he just ruined everything and if maybe that wasn’t actually better because…oh my God, what the fuck was he _doing_. 

“Well,” Harry remarked, bringing him another pint without being asked. “He seems like he’d be an adventurous shag.” 

“Fuck,” said Eames, and put his head in his hands. 

***

Arthur bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked through it in every single room of the stupid apartment. Because fuck it, he _could_. He didn’t have a smoking _problem_ , he just appreciated a cigarette every now and then, and it wasn’t a _secret_ , and he could smoke in his own house if he fucking wanted to, and Eames was an _idiot_ , and—

Arthur looked around the apartment and hated every single thing about it. He had chosen all of it, and it was all perfect, and Jonathan adored it, adored the aesthetic, loved the clean lines and the uncluttered minimalist furniture, and Arthur sometimes wanted to scream at him, _But don’t you ever want to just fuck it up a bit?_

Arthur went through and fucked it up a bit. He scattered towels over the bathroom and pulled the bedspread off the bed and mussed up the sheets. Getting into the swing of things, he took the stupid art off the walls and slashed the canvases into ribbons because they were all _terrible_ , he went into the kitchen and pulled every single utensil out of every single drawer and made enormous heaps of them on the floor. They had a rock on their coffee table. A flat, black _rock_. It was the stupidest, most pretentious thing Arthur had ever seen, and he knew it was picture-perfect, that interior design magazines wanted to do whole features on his stupid apartment and its stupid black _rock_ , and Arthur picked up the rock and flung it at the television as hard as he could. And then he opened up the shelves in the living room and…stopped. 

He looked at his books, careworn but meticulously arranged. Jonathan didn’t touch the hidden shelving units. Jonathan said organization was Arthur’s forte. Jonathan read lazily, without emotion, and threw the books away afterward, literally left them behind for other people to find and pick up, some kind of paying it forward, but Arthur read with his entire heart, read until the books lived inside him, and Arthur hid the shelving units not because he didn’t want to disturb the precious minimalist aesthetic of this apartment but because he didn’t want his entire heart on display like this for people to see. 

Jonathan thought it was sweet, how devoted Arthur was to his books. Jonathan thought it was _sweet_. As if it wasn’t full of stormy, messy emotion, all of it in turmoil all the time. As if books were _calm_. 

Arthur sat on the floor and looked at his wedding files. _Dossiers_ , Eames had called them, and Eames was right, Arthur had made wedding dossiers, as if he and Cobb were still working a mark. 

Arthur leaned his forehead against his knees and breathed, “Christ, what are you doing?” to himself. 

It was fine, he thought. It was all fine. He’d been perfectly happy, perfectly content. Jonathan was lovely, adoring, attentive. Jonathan let him do whatever he wished, never so much as raised an eyebrow at his choices or decisions. Really, if Arthur had said he wanted to smoke in the house now, or overhaul their entire interior decoration, Jonathan would have just said, _Whatever you think best_ , that’s how Jonathan was, that’s what _love_ was, Arthur told himself. It was what love was. It was…easy. Not a struggle, not a fight, just… _easy_. 

Really, Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d been as furious as he’d been with Eames just now, as he’d been walking back into the apartment. And that was a good thing, surely? His life didn’t make him furious and that was a…good thing. 

And it wasn’t Eames’s fault that he’d had some kind of weird mental break that had caused him to want to pretend at being the person he had been. It was some kind of strange wedding jitters, and he wasn’t that person anymore, he was _this_ person, and Arthur never forgot that, never had moments of hesitation. Arthur knew who he was, he definitely _knew who he was_. 

And there was a secret compartment he’d added himself behind the wedding dossiers, and in that compartment was a gorgeous Glock that had been the love of Arthur’s life before he met Jonathan. Arthur had never gotten rid of it, instead he had hidden it in the place where he kept everything closest to his heart, and he should have gotten rid of it, he was done with that life, there was no reason to have a gun in this apartment, no reason to sit on the floor and be _lonely_ and _miss_ things when there was nothing to be lonely about and nothing to miss. He had everything he needed right here, all around him; he had a profusion of things. 

Arthur called Jonathan. 

Jonathan answered, even though it was the middle of the night, because Jonathan probably hadn’t gone to bed yet because he was busy saving the world. 

“Maybe we should go to Vegas,” Arthur said desperately, when Jonathan said _hello_. 

“What? Arthur? Are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself.” 

He didn’t sound like himself. Well, he was curled up on their expensive throw carpet over their expensive marble floor with piles of stuff he’d destroyed all around him, so he supposed whether or not he was himself at that moment was an open question. 

Whether or not he was ever himself, said a voice in his head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Eames. 

“I think I want to elope,” Arthur said into the phone. “I think I want to just…get it over with.” 

“Well, that doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?” said Jonathan gently. 

“I’m not very romantic,” Arthur said. 

“You’re the epitome of romance, Arthur. You always get everything down to a T. You’re just panicking a little bit right now. Too much in your own head. You know that you do that.” 

Did he do that? He didn’t even know. 

“I shouldn’t have left you,” Jonathan went on, “with the wedding so close. I didn’t realize your state was so perilous.” 

“I’m not...” Arthur took a deep breath. “I’m not perilous, I’m not some…damsel in distress you need to come rescue. I’m fine, I’m just…” Arthur looked around at the apartment in ruins and thought, _Christ, Arthur, you are the very opposite of fine_. “I miss you,” Arthur heard himself say. 

Jonathan sounded amused when he answered. “I’ve only been gone a couple of hours. This _must_ be true love.” 

“Must be,” Arthur echoed dully, and ended the call and looked around him wearily. 

He didn’t miss Jonathan. He missed having someone near him to remind him of who he was now, of what his life was now, because there had only been Eames, reminding him of a completely different life, a completely different way to be, and that was no good, that was really, really, _really_ no good. He had to shake this, he had to…

Eames sang through Arthur’s blood, low and insidious, like the lure of the Glock in the cabinet and the cigarettes he could buy just downstairs, only a thousand times worse. Arthur tried to drown him out but Eames was everywhere in his brain, in every corner and crevice, and this was a bad time for this sudden onset _obsession_. What was the matter with him? 

Arthur thought he should research Eames. He should research him and find out what made him tick and compartmentalize him. That was what Arthur _did_ , and he was good at it, and it would be fine, he would just… _do_ that. 

Except he didn’t want to. Arthur felt practically high from the evening with Eames. He didn’t want to compartmentalize it. Now that the fury had worn off, he wanted it back. He wanted to make a different choice. He wanted to lean across that table and kiss Eames, brutal and fierce. He wanted to drag him into an alley and press him against a wall. He wanted, he realized, with an almost flat detachment, to take him back here and fuck him in his own bed, on those pristine, fucking expensive sheets. He wanted Eames everywhere so that he wouldn’t be able to get him out again. He wanted to be the person he was when he was with Eames, and that was stupid, because he’d been that person and then he’d left it behind. 

What was _wrong_ with him? He was losing his mind. This was all wildly uncharacteristic. This was all—

Done, he told himself. Over with. He wasn’t going to do this anymore. For fuck’s sake, he needed to get a grip and stop having a nervous breakdown over some second-rate artist with sketchy gambling debts. 

Arthur showered and dressed and went to work at a ridiculously early hour, just so that he didn’t have to deal with the apartment anymore. Or with the thoughts of Eames. Arthur liked his job, liked the mathematics of it coupled with the thrill of the risk; Arthur had thought it perfect when he had chosen it, and today he couldn’t add a single number. Today Arthur sat and looked at his computer and saw his life stretching before him, and his life was _gray_. Eames was right: gray was no one’s favorite color. 

For the second time in his life, Arthur thought it was possible he’d made a huge mistake. 

And that mistake, he thought, might have been thinking he’d make a mistake when he’d thought it for the first time in his life.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Eames went to their flat, and Ariadne and Yusuf were back to playing videogames. Eames didn’t rant or rave, he just walked in and sat at the desk and started typing, and there must have been something about the way he was holding himself that gave him away, because the game immediately paused and Ariadne said, “Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” 

Eames sent the email he’d been typing and said, as casually as possible, “The Arthur job is off.” 

“Couldn’t crack him, huh?” said Ariadne. 

“I told you he was happy,” said Yusuf. 

“He’s the opposite of happy,” Eames snapped at them. “He’s very, very unhappy. I just…can’t do the job.” 

There was a long moment of silence. 

Ariadne said carefully, “Eames, you need that money—”

“I’ll find a way to get the money.” Eames leaned his elbows on the desk and put his head in his hands. “I’ll…find another job.” 

“Another job willing to pay this much?” said Yusuf skeptically. 

“What happened last night?” Ariadne asked. 

“Nothing,” said Eames miserably, because he didn’t want to talk about it. “Nothing happened.” 

“Did he not like L’Orifice?” asked Ariadne. 

Eames had almost forgotten they’d started the night there. He laughed helplessly, because really this whole thing would have been some kind of comedy if it wasn’t a tragedy. “Christ, no, you lot are _all wrong_ about him, you’ve been wrong about him from the beginning. We played pool. We hustled people out of thousands of pounds. He is _magnificent_ at pool, and, God, he’s genius at a con, like he was born to it.”

“You took an investment banker out and hustled pool?” Ariadne said, sounding perplexed. 

“And he enjoyed it?” said Yusuf. 

“He had a blast. He had the time of his life. It was delightful. And then afterward I took him to the pub.” The whole night spilled out of Eames in a babble, because he almost wanted to be yelled at for how monumentally stupidly he’d behaved. 

“What pub?” asked Ariadne blankly. 

But Yusuf caught on. “ _Your_ pub? Holy Christ, did you bring him to your pub, Eames?” 

Eames looked at Yusuf and put his head dramatically down on the desk. 

“Why would you let him into your real life like that?” Ariadne asked in alarm. 

Eames groaned his displeasure with himself. 

“Because he’s lovesick,” said Yusuf matter-of-factly. 

Ariadne gave a shocked gasp. Eames banged his forehead on the desk. 

“Are you in love with him, Eames?” Ariadne asked. 

Eames considered, his head against the desk. Then he turned just a bit and opened one eye and said solemnly, “It’s possible he’s the love of my life.” 

Ariadne looked horrified. “Don’t joke about this.” 

“I’m not joking. I am a wreck. What am I _doing_? I just emailed the Cobbs and called off the job.” 

“You did _what_?” exclaimed Ariadne. 

“What is wrong with your head?” asked Yusuf, and leaned across so he could swat his hand over the top of Eames’s head. 

“Eames, why would you do that? This is perfect! Break up the wedding, make yourself happy, get the fifty thousand pounds!” 

“Ari, I’m not going to take money to _ruin Arthur’s life_ ,” said Eames darkly. 

“Why would it be ruining his life? You’re the one who keeps saying he’s unhappy.” 

“He is unhappy, but he doesn’t need me. He needs someone, you know, not an idiot who can’t even gamble properly and has a stupid job where he breaks up couples for a living. Arthur needs an _actual person_.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

“I’ve got news for you,” Ariadne said finally. “I think you’re an actual person.” 

“I have my doubts,” said Yusuf. 

“Shut up,” Ariadne hissed at him. “You’re not helping.” 

“I want to die,” Eames said to the wood of the desk because it was the most sympathetic thing in the room. “I want to _die_ instead of knowing that he exists in the world and that I can’t have him.” 

“You can have him,” Ariadne said. 

“I don’t deserve him,” said Eames. “I’ve done nothing to deserve him. I’m lying to him.” 

“About what?” 

“Who I am,” Eames pointed out honestly. 

“Eames, you showed him your art. It seems to me Arthur is the only person on the planet who actually knows who you are.” 

Eames turned this over in his head. And it didn’t matter. Arthur was going to find out Eames had wormed his way into his life under false pretenses, and Arthur was going to hate him. Those lethal, dark eyes would turn flat and the dimples would vanish, and Arthur would hate him. What had he done? “We should never have taken this job,” Eames said. 

“We told you not to,” said Yusuf. 

“I hate you,” Eames said. “You’re fired.” 

His phone chimed in his pocket with a text. And then another one. And another one. 

Eames sat up, eyes wide, and then he pulled his mobile out. Arthur. They were from _Arthur_ . 

_I’m sorry_ , read the first one. And, _Can we pretend it didn’t happen?_ And, _Could we still do whatever it was you had planned for today?_

Eames stared at the texts, not breathing. 

Ariadne guessed, “Arthur?” 

“Why is he talking to me?” Eames asked in anguish. “He shouldn’t be talking to me.” 

“Why?” asked Yusuf. “What did you do to him?” 

Eames ignored him. Eames stared at the texts. “I shouldn’t respond, right? Should I respond?” 

“Eames, does he like you back?” asked Ariadne, sounding careful and almost fragile about the whole thing, like this was something amazing that shouldn’t be jostled. 

And maybe it was. “I don’t know,” Eames breathed. But he texted back. 

_do u have a car_

***

Arthur had a car. Of course he did. Arthur had a purring, growling Aston Martin, and Eames almost fell over himself when he saw it, idling so incongruously in Eames’s sketchy neighborhood. 

The car window opened and Arthur called to him, “Stop getting all masturbatory over the car and get in before we get carjacked.” 

Eames snorted. “I would like to see anyone try to carjack _you_.” He opened the door and got in. 

“Where are we going?” Arthur asked. 

“‘Masturbatory’?” said Eames. “Who uses that word? And what the hell is with the tie, Arthur?” 

“You didn’t tell me where we were going,” Arthur pointed out primly. 

“You thought I might be taking you somewhere with a formal dress code?” 

“Well, you started out last night at L’Orifice. I see you’re back to the paisley.” 

“I thought you were worried about getting carjacked,” Eames reminded him. 

Arthur glanced for traffic in entirely the wrong direction, said, “Fuck,” and corrected himself. 

Eames said, “Drive a lot over here, do you?” 

“Shut up,” said Arthur and squealed the car into traffic. “Where are we going?” 

“Head for the M4.”

“Um,” said Arthur, and took a corner at an appalling speed. 

“You have a hundred-thousand-pound car and you never drive it, do you?” 

“This car isn’t mine, it’s Jonathan’s.”

Great, thought Eames. He was trying to seduce this man in his fiance’s car. Eames was the most unscrupulous person he’d ever met. 

“I think I should drive,” Eames decided, just as a matter of public safety, because Arthur was practically up on the pavement running down pedestrians. 

Arthur was poking at the car. “There’s a GPS in here. Just put the address in the GPS.” 

Eames sighed, but he did as was requested. And then, curious, he ran the radio through its presets, which were all the BBC radio stations. Jonathan set those, Eames thought. Definitely. 

“We need music in this car,” Eames announced, as the cool voice of the GPS lady directed Arthur and Arthur tried his best to narrowly avoid as many obstacles as possible on his way to the motorway. And if Eames had been working seriously at this job, he would have had a whole bunch of French jazz all queued up somewhere. Or maybe some classical music. But the truth was he thought both of those choices would have been wrong for Arthur. And he wasn’t taking this job seriously, he wasn’t-wasn’t- _wasn’t_ , he’d just thought to fill up a playlist with suggested French pop hits from the internet. When he finished fiddling and got his phone all hooked up to the car’s sound system, Arthur was finally doing a decent job of driving them on the motorway, and then he frowned and said, “Is this Julien Dore?” 

Bingo, thought Eames, pleased with himself. “I love Julien Dore,” he said. 

“No, you don’t,” said Arthur. 

“Why don’t you think I love Julien Dore?” 

“What’s this song, then?” 

Eames tried to peek at his phone, but Arthur reached out and grabbed it away, holding it against his thigh. 

“What’s the name of this song?” asked Arthur again. 

Eames tried to listen very hard to the incomprehensible sounds of the French language. “It’s, um, _Chat Noir_ , definitely.” 

“ _Chat Noir_?” echoed Arthur. 

“I’m pretty sure he has a song called _Chat Noir_ ,” bluffed Eames confidently. 

“He doesn’t have a song called _Chat Noir_.”

“Suddenly you’re a Julien Dore expert?” 

Arthur answered by turning up the volume and _singing along_. He sang along, in _French_ , and Eames thought probably he should just die now, probably he was never going to live any moment better than this one. 

Arthur gave him an arch look and turned the volume down and said, “What’s your game, Eames?” 

“My game?” said Eames, playing for time because he didn’t know what his game was, honestly, he had _no fucking idea_ what he was doing. 

“How did you know I like Julien Dore?” 

“I didn’t,” said Eames, going for the truth. “It was a lucky guess.” 

Arthur looked out the windscreen for a long moment and then rubbed a hand quickly over his face, and Eames swallowed and looked out the window. He wondered if he should mention last night, but Arthur wanted to ignore it. Eames didn’t even know why Arthur was there with him in the first place. 

Arthur said, “So where are we going?” 

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.” 

“Well, it’s still a surprise.” 

“You’d better not be taking me out in the woods to kill me.”

“I was going to just hold you for ransom, but then you showed up in this car, so now I’m just going to steal this car.” 

“This is such a showy, ridiculous car,” Arthur sighed. “I don’t even like how it drives.” 

“And here I thought you had _taste_.” 

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “That’s what everyone thinks.” 

There was something there. Eames paused and considered and then let it drop. He turned the music up and said, “Tell me what this French song is.” 

“This is Tal,” Arthur said. 

“Can you sing along to Tal, too?” 

Arthur didn’t sing in response. Arthur said something in French. Arthur said something in _French_ , and really, it was obvious that would cause all of Eames’s blood to run straight out of his head because who could bear to have Arthur _talking French_ like that? 

“What did you say?” Eames asked faintly. 

Arthur smiled out the windscreen, dimples showing up, and said, “A secret.” 

A _secret_. Eames almost clawed his way right over to the driver’s seat, but that would wreck this beautiful car so he restrained himself and looked out the window. They were off the motorway now, driving through English countryside, and Arthur was going too fast, because Eames knew the turn was coming. 

He said, “You should—”

And then the GPS said, “Next right.” 

Arthur said, “Fuck,” and swung the car into a crazy turn onto the dirt road. 

“Bloody fucking hell,” Eames said, “you’re an awful driver.” 

“You have tiny roads here and tight turns. You should update this whole country, join the same century as the rest of us.”

“Christ, you’re an annoying American,” Eames told him. 

“Where are we?” Arthur asked, throwing the car into park because the lane had ended in a circular drive in front of a ramshackle old house with a moss-clung fountain out in front. 

Eames beamed at it. It was _perfect_. It was exactly what Eames had wanted it to be, exactly what it had looked like on the internet. “You’re having your wedding at the Chauncey Hotel,” Eames said. 

“Yes,” said Arthur. 

“Why?”

Arthur frowned. “Because it’s the best place in London to have a wedding.” 

“It definitely is not. It’s the most expensive, sure. The most impressive, probably. It’s not you at all. You should be having your wedding here.” 

Arthur looked out at the shabby, ivy-covered structure and said, “In a falling-down abandoned house?” 

“It’s neither,” Eames said. “Get out and take a look.” Eames followed his own advice. 

After a moment, Arthur followed him. Eames crunched confidently across the gravel drive toward the front door. 

“Are we supposed to be here?” Arthur asked. “Is this private property?” 

“Now would be a good time to tell you that I’m a Communist who doesn’t believe in private property.”

“Unless it belongs to you.” 

“That’s how I understand Communism to work,” Eames grinned at him and picked the lock on the front door. 

“If this place is bugged or we’re being recorded or something, I would like to formally strenuously lodge my objection to breaking into this place.” 

Eames nudged the door open and turned to Arthur and said, “That’s the investment banker in you talking. Where’s the pool hustler, hmm? Where’s the gambler?” 

“Okay,” Arthur allowed. “I will say that you’re pretty good at picking a lock. That was cleanly and quickly done.” 

“Do be sure to fill out my online survey to express your satisfaction with my housebreaking abilities,” said Eames, and gestured Arthur in. 

The truth was the house wasn’t abandoned, it just wasn’t popular. Not a lot of people wanted to have weddings at a place that looked like it might be haunted. But it was old and it was full of charm from everything that had been there before. It looked like it needed a little bit of polish, a little bit of love, and it would get there. The bones were good, and the architectural details were divine, and it was crowded and cluttered with stuff to look at _everywhere_ , and Eames thought it was the best he had seen his art embodied in a building. 

Arthur was silent. He was looking around the entrance hall, then he moved and poked his head into the large reception room to the right. Arthur said, “It’s…I mean, it needs to be dusted and cleaned up and…” 

“Uh-huh,” said Eames, not fooled for a second, because Arthur looked…reverent. Eames was almost drunk on how _right_ he had Arthur in his head. Eames said, “The ballroom’s this way,” and led Arthur to the back. 

“Have you been here before?” asked Arthur. 

Eames shook his head. “Just scoped it out.” 

There was a moment of silence. Then Arthur said, “You’re a burglar on the side, aren’t you?” 

“I am absolutely not a burglar; I am completely and utterly law-abiding,” said Eames.

“Christ, Eames, why don’t you rob someone and get yourself out of the trouble with the sketchy threatening businessmen people?” Arthur complained. “Are you just the world’s least competent criminal?” 

“Yes. That’s me. Ballroom.” He gestured. 

The ballroom was huge and lined with enormous windows that looked out over the garden. They were on a hill, and the countryside rolled away from them, the largeness of the world out there beckoning, calling with whatever great things might be over the next rise, around the next corner. 

Arthur looked around him, paced the room out, and said, “Oh, fuck, your art would suit this place. That’s why you picked it, isn’t it?” 

The thing was that Eames was in love with Arthur, and he knew he was. He knew he was in desperate love with him. So he really wished Arthur would stop doing more and more and _more_ to make Eames love him. It was done. Arthur didn’t need to keep doing more. “You should be having your wedding here, Arthur,” Eames said. “You would fill this place up. You would make it alive. Because that’s really what you do. You’re the opposite of what people think you are. What even _is_ that flat you’re living in? It isn’t you. You like things like this, the things people don’t realize are brilliant at first, or at least not brilliant in the way they’re thinking. Like you. This is you. This is…the surprise on the inside, the space that goes on and on and floors you every minute.” 

Arthur was still, his back to Eames. He looked around the room and said, sounding anguished, “I can’t… There isn’t time to— Why would you bring me here, when you know I can’t change the wedding now?” 

“Of course you can change the wedding now. It’s your wedding. You can do whatever you like,” Eames pointed out evenly. 

Arthur stood in the middle of the room and said, “I didn’t choose this. It isn’t what I chose.” And then he walked out of the room. 

Eames heard the house’s front door close behind him. He waited to hear the car roar away but it didn’t, and when he followed him outside, Arthur was sitting behind the wheel, waiting for him. Apparently he wasn’t going to abandon him. 

Eames got in the car and Arthur didn’t say anything. His jaw was clenched, and he drove even more crazily than he had on the way down, and Eames didn’t dare break the silence, not even with the French pop music. He thought Arthur’s silence was a good thing. Arthur was brooding. There was no way Arthur was going to end up with Eames—Eames had doomed their relationship from the very beginning—but Eames didn’t care. Or at least he told himself that. This was his job: Make unhappy people realize they were unhappy, make them go in search of their happiness. That’s what he was doing here. 

Arthur said suddenly, “Eames, do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“That question is a little alarming,” Eames replied. 

Arthur squealed his car off the motorway.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Laser tag. 

“I am fucking good at this,” Arthur warned him. 

And he was, too. He was _amazing_. Like he was amazing at hustling pool and amazing at praising Eames’s art and amazing at investment banking and amazing at facing down huge mountain men named Olaf. Arthur was just _amazing_. 

Eames was not bad at laser tag, but he needed a lot of practice, and Arthur blew him out of the water. 

“We’ve done two activities you’re really good at,” Eames grumbled good-naturedly as they were leaving. “We should do one that I’m really good at, so that I don’t feel so useless.” 

“Well, what are you really good at, Mr. Eames?” drawled Arthur. 

His voice was suddenly…sex. There was no other way to put it. Eames’s blood thrummed under his skin, beat in a staccato rhythm of _Arthur Arthur Arthur Arthur_. 

They were walking side-by-side to the car, and Eames said nothing. Eames stuck his hands in his pockets and closed them into fists and did not look at Arthur. 

“The thing is,” said Arthur, “you’re a terrible gambler, and horrible at laser tag, and your pool hustle could use some work—”

“I’m good at breaking and entering,” Eames heard himself say. 

Arthur turned suddenly and launched his keys as far as he could, into the thickening twilight. 

Eames stared after them, as they fell somewhere in the far distance. “What the hell,” he said, stunned. 

Arthur said innocently, “Can you hotwire a car?” 

“Well, what the fuck are we going to do if I can’t?” asked Eames, still shocked Arthur had done that. 

Arthur turned to him. Looked at him. It was dark enough that Eames couldn’t see the look in Arthur’s eye, but Eames could sense the restlessness pouring off of him in overpowering waves. Eames was drowning in the sharp edges of this situation. This was madness, insanity, but it had been from the beginning, and Eames had no desire to get out of it now. 

Arthur said, “Hotwire this car. Get us back to London. Break into my apartment.” 

“Why?” Eames said, confused. “This is ridiculous.” 

“You do all that, I let you fuck me when we get there,” said Arthur. 

Eames thought he was going to fall over with how quickly his arousal kicked into gear. He said, “Arthur. You. I.” 

“Be impressive, Mr. Eames,” said Arthur. 

“No.” Eames shook his head and tried to gather his thoughts through the thickening of _everything_. “You’re. We shouldn’t. You’re.” 

“Which is why it’s going to be so fucking incredible,” said Arthur. 

Eames closed his eyes and rocked a little on his feet, and Arthur hadn’t even _touched_ him. 

“If you hotwire this car in less than a minute, I’ll blow you on the way,” said Arthur. “Time starts now.” 

***

“You just hotwired an Aston Martin in less than a minute,” said Arthur, sounding impressed. 

“Yes. I can,” Eames said stupidly, because he just had. “Listen, I don’t think we should—”

“Art,” said Arthur, as he slid into the passenger seat and closed the door. 

“What?” said Eames. 

“You’re good at art. That’s what you’re good at. You went with breaking and entering instead. Do you know why?” 

Eames considered the steering wheel. “I think it’s because I’m better at breaking and entering than I am at art,” he admitted reluctantly. 

“You’re pretty impressive in both,” Arthur said. “You went with breaking and entering because you want to steal me. This was never about the artist in you. This was about the thief in you. I just can’t figure out why you looked at me and thought that I would be anything worth stealing.” 

Eames finally lifted his eyes from the steering wheel and looked at Arthur. “Because you’re the most astonishingly gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. That’s the artist in me.” 

There was a moment of charged silence. 

Arthur said, “Drive.” 

So Eames did. He drove blindly, feeling his way instinctively toward the motorway, which was when Arthur made his move and was suddenly on him, fingers on his zipper, mouth sucking a bruise into Eames’s neck. 

“Jesus Christ,” Eames said, eyes closing reflexively. He forced them back open. “Stop it,” he said, and tried to shake Arthur off. 

“I can’t,” Arthur said, and soothed the bruise he’d made, and then bit over it. 

Eames shuddered a curse out and couldn’t _believe_ how immediately hard he’d gotten. 

“I’m not going to,” Arthur said. “You can’t just… You can’t just remind me what all this is like and then just… You can’t just… _Fuck_.” Arthur said it thickly, softly, panting against Eames’s neck, his hands almost absently stroking at Eames, and Eames had no idea what to do. Then Arthur said, “Drive the car, Eames.”

“You are going to get both of us fucking _killed_ , oh my God,” gasped Eames, as Arthur swallowed him down. 

“You’re in control,” Arthur hummed against him. “Eyes open, hands on the steering wheel, watch your foot on the gas, I think we’re slowing down.” 

They were. Eames punched at the gas pedal reflexively and switched lanes so at least they would be in the slowest lane and he’d drive them off into the shoulder if he lost control. “Arthur,” said Eames, and clenched his hands around the steering wheel and thought how he should push Arthur away, and cars passed by them and Eames just let Arthur… “I am definitely not in control.” 

“Life is luck, Eames,” said Arthur, and sucked, and Eames snapped his eyes back open and jerked the car straight again. “It’s all fucking luck. It’s a roll of the die.” 

“Your die is loaded,” Eames managed, and he was driving a car on a motorway and fucking thrusting up into Arthur’s mouth and he had just met this man and this man was marrying someone else in a few days and it was beyond Eames anymore what any of his life decisions were because this whole thing felt so damn good that he never wanted it to end, he wanted to be hovering on the edge of an orgasm while he careened them down the motorway for the rest of their lives. 

“Fucking right,” said Arthur, and brought him off. 

***

“This is where I live,” Arthur said when they got there. 

“I know,” Eames reminded him. “I’ve been here.” 

“Did you case the place when you were here?”

“Arthur,” Eames started. 

“Here’s the deal,” said Arthur, and bit his earlobe and then spoke into his ear. “You broke into a house today like it was nothing and hotwired this car in under a minute, so you’re going to stop pretending you’re not a criminal and I’m going to stop pretending I don’t like it that you are.” 

“Oh, have you been pretending that you’re not turned on by my being a criminal? Is that what you’ve been doing? What is it you do when you stop pretending not to want me?” 

Arthur chuckled, warm and low against his ear. “Mmm, just wait until you find out.” And then Arthur moved away and opened the passenger side door. “I’m going inside now.” 

Eames blinked, confused. “What do you mean?” 

“I don’t need a key to get in here, Eames. They know who I am.” Arthur smiled one of those feral smiles he had that made Eames lose all rational thought. “Come and find me,” he said, and closed the door. 

***

Arthur stood in his ruined apartment and wondered wildly what he was doing. What the everloving _fuck_ was he _doing_? 

“Don’t think,” he told himself under his breath. “Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.” He walked through to the bathroom and splashed water over his face and looked at himself in the mirror and started in a sudden shock of recognition. 

Because that was _him_. 

And he had never before looked in the mirror and thought it wasn’t him, he knew what his face looked like, he wasn’t some kind of overly poetic, philosophical idiot. But he couldn’t help it. His color was high, and his pupils were dilated, and his hair was a mess, and he was _grinning_. Arthur tried to think of the last time he’d felt this fucking _alive_ , and oh my God, he was a terrible, awful person but he _wanted_ this, he had been on the verge of a terrible mistake and he had to fix it. 

Arthur took out his phone and texted Jonathan, because he was the sort of terrible person who would do this in a text. 

_Wedding’s off_ , he said. _It’s me, not you. I’m sorry. You can have the apartment._

And the thing about this was: Jonathan wouldn’t care. Well, that was unfair, Jonathan would _care_ , in an abstract way that wouldn’t touch the rest of Jonathan’s life. Jonathan was an amazing person who had a million excellent interests and Arthur had always flitted around the outside edges of Jonathan’s life, neither of them too invested in the other, and Arthur had thought that he had _wanted_ that. It had seemed so easy and _safe_. 

But he didn’t want it. He didn’t want a relationship as casual as his relationship with Jonathan, as unmemorable. He wanted to be swept off of his feet, turned upside-down, his entire life trembling around him and his chest close like he couldn’t breathe. He wanted…He wanted _Eames_.

Arthur looked at the phone, texted again, _I really am so sorry. You deserve someone so much better than me. You deserve someone who takes your breath away. I hope you find it._ Then Arthur shut his phone off. 

And then he went into the living area and waited for Eames. 

He had no doubt Eames would break in. Whoever Eames was, he was clearly much more accomplished at criminal undertakings than he would have wanted Arthur to believe. But Arthur thought he recognized Eames. Arthur thought he recognized Eames the way he had suddenly recognized himself in the mirror looking back at him just now. 

Arthur was drinking a glass of water in the kitchen when the deadbolt on the door clicked open, and his heart jumped with nerves, and this was ridiculous, and he put the glass in the sink and looked up and Eames was there, surveying the apartment. 

Eames looked at him and said cautiously, “Um. Have you been robbed?” 

Arthur for the first time realized what a state the apartment really was in. Arthur shook his head and walked over to Eames and said, “I did this.” 

“You did…what?” Eames looked confused. 

“I am a fucking mess. I am a… You should really walk out the door right now, you really should.” Arthur focused on the top button of Eames’s terrible shirt. 

Eames said, “I just invested a lot of effort into getting through that door, I’ll have you know. And if they’re calling the police on me, I really think I should at least be getting an orgasm out of the deal.” 

“You already got an orgasm,” Arthur reminded him. 

“I’m greedy,” said Eames. “Probably you should know that about me.” 

“I’m serious,” Arthur said desperately, clinging to the last shreds of his decency. “You should think about this before we do this. You should really—”

“You’re the one with a fiancé,” Eames countered. “ _You_ should—”

Arthur shook his head. “I don’t have a fiancé anymore.” 

Eames stared at him for a very long moment. And then Eames backed him against the wall. 

“Eames,” Arthur managed, even as he pulled him in, because Arthur loved being crowded this way. “Don’t—”

“You think you’re the only one who’s a mess?” Eames demanded. “You think that isn’t why I wanted to steal you? Because you’re the most beautiful, glorious mess I’ve ever seen, and oh my _God_ , Arthur, let’s just be fabulous messes together.” 

Arthur had never heard anything so gorgeous in his life. 

***

Eames’s voice nuzzled his name into his skin, over and over and over and over, and Arthur gasped and panted and considered whether he was ever going to move again. 

“Did you really call off the wedding?” Eames’s voice formed other words, a whole entire sentence, in fact. 

“Of course I called off the wedding,” Arthur slurred, because his mouth wasn’t really forming words yet the way Eames’s was. “What kind of horrible person do you think I am?” 

“I don’t think you’re horrible at all,” said Eames, and suddenly bundled him in close. 

“Are you a cuddler?” Arthur asked in surprise, because Arthur didn’t usually cuddle after sex. 

“Arthur, I want you to come away with me,” said Eames, quick and desperate. 

“What?” said Arthur, unable to follow the thread of this conversation. 

“Please,” said Eames, burying his face against his neck. “Please. Please don’t ask questions. Please just come with me.” 

“Eames,” Arthur said, bewildered, and combed a hand through his hair. “Of course I will. If you want me to, of course I will. But what’s this about? Is this about the gambling debts? I can pay off the gambling debts.” 

“Arthur, I’m in love with you,” Eames blurted out. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but I love you, and I want you to come away with me, and we’ll start over someplace and just be us, just us, not anyone we were before. Just us, just this, please do this for me. _Please_.” 

“This will make you happy?” Arthur said. 

“So happy,” Eames said. “Please just say you’ll come with me. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. We’ll take the Chunnel, and we’ll start in Paris, and we’ll just— You understand that I love you and I want you, right?” 

“I understand you’re pretty fucking needy after sex,” said Arthur, having no idea what was going on. “But yeah. If you need me to run with you, I’ll run with you anywhere you want. Running kind of used to be my thing. Well. Lots of things used to be my thing. But what’s this about?” 

“I’m an idiot,” Eames said thickly, sounding miserable. 

“That is not news to me,” Arthur said. “I pretty much agree with that statement.” 

“I wanted to steal you, Arthur,” said Eames, and he sounded unbearably sad. “I just wanted to steal you.” 

“You stole me,” Arthur said, perplexed. “I’m yours. But, Eames, what did you do?” 

“If you knew. If you _knew_.” 

“Eames.” Arthur tried to shush him. “If I knew, it wouldn’t make any difference to how I feel about you. What have you done? Who’s after you? I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know.” 

But Eames shook his head and shook his head and said, “I’m so sorry, Arthur. I am. But I just _want_ you. I want to _keep_ you.” 

“It’s fine,” Arthur said. “I want to be kept. Eames, seriously, you’re scaring me here. Did you pay to have me killed or something?” 

“Don’t even _joke_ about that.” 

“Did you pay to have Jonathan killed?” 

“I didn’t pay to have anyone killed.” 

“Good. So tell me what you did, then.” 

“I stole you,” Eames said morosely. “I just _stole_ you.” 

And he wouldn’t say anything more. 

***

Arthur turned on his phone and winced at how many texts and voicemails he had missed. Not really from Jonathan, which just showed how right Arthur had been to call everything off. _Arthur_ , Jonathan’s text read, _you don’t sound like yourself, and I don’t know what this is about, but if that’s truly what’s going to make you happy, you know I can’t argue with that._ Polite and self-sacrificing, Arthur thought. So _Jonathan_. Shouldn’t Jonathan want to fight for him? Arthur wanted to be fought for. Arthur wanted to be _stolen_. 

Arthur wanted out of this life. Eames wanted to disappear and that was fine with Arthur. Arthur wanted to disappear. Arthur wanted to throw out every single fucking terrible thing that went with this life he’d invented for himself. 

He started with tipping his phone into the toilet. He’d get a new one. 

He opened his secret compartment and slid the Glock out. He looked at his books and then he opened his briefcase and he piled them in, because his books were his constant, his links between lives. And then he left every single fucking other thing exactly as it was. Including the wedding dossiers. 

And he walked out of his life. 

And he was almost out, too. He would be early to meet Eames but it didn’t matter, he’d kill time by grabbing himself a new phone somewhere. And he was hailing a cab when who got out of it but Dom and Mal Cobb. 

Arthur blinked at them in astonishment and thought, _Life is luck, Arthur_ , and what the hell kind of luck was this. 

Dom looked at his briefcase and said, “Going somewhere?” 

“What are you doing here?” Arthur asked, because he couldn’t think what else to say. 

“We heard you were getting married,” Dom said. “Thought you must have misplaced our invitation.” 

“Hello, _mon cher_!” Mal said enthusiastically and kissed his cheeks. 

“I’m not getting married anymore,” Arthur said. “I’m…” 

“Thank God,” Dom sighed. “When I got the email, I thought maybe it was a lost cause, but you’re not making this mistake anyway, so that’s good.” 

“What email?” said Arthur. 

***

He was going. He was really going to go. He was just going to walk away from all of this, and it wouldn’t matter, because he would have Arthur. 

“This is crazy,” Ariadne was saying, tagging behind him as he headed one last time toward the work flat, because his very favorite sketch he’d ever drawn was hanging there and he couldn’t leave without it. 

“I should have texted you two from the station,” Eames muttered, annoyed. 

“Eames, you just met this guy,” Ariadne said, “and I support you finding true love and all that, but this seems a little crazy.” 

“Even for you,” added Yusuf. 

“We can’t stay here, Ari. If we stay here, I’ll go crazy worrying every second that he’ll find out what I did before I met him and why it was we met. I can’t… Let me just do this,” Eames pleaded with her. “Please.” 

“We just don’t know who this guy is,” Ariadne said. “There’s that big black hole Yusuf can’t fill in—”

“If he was going to kill me or something, he could have done it easily,” Eames said, shaking his head. 

And then he opened the door to the flat and Arthur was sitting calmly at the desk, feet propped up, holding a gun on him. 

***

When Arthur had still been in corporate espionage, Dom used to say that he was the coolest under pressure he’d ever seen. That Arthur lived for those moments when other people panicked. That Arthur liked slicing through that panic, fed off of it, settled it calmly around him and drew power from it. 

Arthur was just good at compartmentalizing. 

It was how he’d heard a whole story about hiring someone to break him and Jonathan up, and that person had failed, but then he hadn’t failed at all, and it must have been a miscommunication, and Dom had babbled, and Mal had been the one to notice, because Mal was always the one to notice Arthur’s moods. Mal had seen him go silent and still, that intense calm that meant that Arthur was about to kill someone, that Arthur had had fucking _enough_. That was how Arthur got, at the end of his rope. He didn’t throw tantrums like he had in the apartment. At the true end of his rope, he just got done what needed to get done, and he didn’t fucking _think_ about it. You did what you had to do. That was life. Life was luck. 

And Mal had said, “Why aren’t you marrying Jonathan anymore, Arthur?” trying to untangle what was going on. 

Arthur had got in a cab. Arthur had gone straight to a café and jumped online. Arthur had finally fucking _researched_. 

And Arthur was an _idiot_. 

Because a smart man would have learned everything Arthur had just learned and would have gone back to Jonathan to beg for forgiveness for his temporary insanity. Or a smart man would have run away and disappeared. A smart man would not have tracked down Eames’s business’s office and stared at a board of details of his life and stood there running over in his head all of the practiced things Eames had done to crawl under Arthur’s skin and shake his entire life apart and think, _Oh my God, you fell for this. Like a little kid who’d never been out in the world before._

“Arthur,” Eames said in shock when he walked through the door. 

“Hello, Eames,” Arthur said evenly. “Hello, two people whom I’ve never met before. You two should turn around and leave, really.” 

“What’s going on?” said the girl, staring at the gun. 

The guy said, “Hey, calm down, okay? There’s no reason to—”

“All right, fine, suit yourself, close the door,” said Arthur, rolling his eyes because he didn’t have fucking time for this. 

“We’re not going to—” the girl started. 

Arthur shot the wall by her head. 

The girl jumped a mile and her eyes widened and Eames shut the door. 

Arthur said, “Nice board you’ve got on me over there. You missed almost everything of importance, but, you know, nice try.” Arthur looked at Eames. “Corporate espionage,” he said. “That’s what the black hole in my life was. An extraordinarily lucrative and very successful career as a corporate spy. I was very, very good at it. You try to go for your phone one more time, man-who-has-the-misfortune-to-work-with-Eames, and I will fucking shoot your hand off.” 

Eames said, “Arthur. All right. Look—”

“I was just going to leave, you know. I put this whole thing together finally, and I was just going to leave, and you were going to wait at that station for me, and you were never going to know what happened, and you would call me and call me and never get in touch with me and I kind of liked that idea, I really, really did, but then I thought, No. Arthur. Is that any way to treat such a worthy opponent?” 

Eames said again, “Arthur—”

“If you say my name one more fucking time,” Arthur snapped, because that was just the _worst_ , Eames’s voice saying his _name_. 

Eames opened and closed his mouth, which was good because Arthur thought he at least still looked like someone who might do some damage instead of someone who was crumbling to pieces inside. 

Arthur said, “You’re very good. You’re really very, very good. I am distressingly impressed. In the old days, I feel like I would have offered you a job. The best touch was pretending to be a little bit bad at it. I mean, really, in retrospect, that’s brilliant. You’ve taught me a lot about my vulnerable points. You’re right, I have a savior complex—it’s a failing. So I thought I should thank you for that. I mean, really, it’s a valuable lesson you’ve taught me, it really is.” 

“Can we talk about this?” said Eames. 

“We are talking,” Arthur pointed out. 

“You’re talking,” said Eames. 

Arthur sighed. “It’s so annoying about you. I mean, look at you. I have a gun pointed at your head and you’re still being annoying. Impressive. Really. And your commitment to the con is unsurpassed. The fucking was a nice touch, it really was. Even I would have drawn the line at that, but you don’t have lines, and I admire that.” 

“It isn’t—”

“Eames, I swear to God, if you open your mouth one more time, I will shoot you.” 

Eames’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t talk. 

“I can’t decide,” Arthur went on, “whether I pushed your hand, throwing myself at you the way I did, or whether you’d been setting me up for that. And I was going to ask you and then I decided it didn’t matter because—”

“You said it wouldn’t matter,” Eames interrupted him. 

“What did I say?” snapped Arthur. 

And Eames snapped back, because Eames was _Eames_ and he fought and he wasn’t easy and Arthur wanted to shoot him so very, very badly and damn it. “You’re not going to shoot me,” was what Eames said. “And I told you. Or I tried to tell you. I told you I’d stolen you, I told you that you wouldn’t like it, and you said if you knew, it wouldn’t matter. That’s what you said. So don’t pretend that I did this entirely without your knowing. If you’d wanted to know what was going on, you would have known it before all that happened. You had all the time in the world to figure it out, Arthur, and you’re apparently a corporate spy, so don’t fucking pretend you couldn’t have known if you’d wanted to know.” 

Christ, Arthur fucking _hated_ Eames. And Arthur didn’t know if he hated himself more for not finding out sooner or for finding out at all. Thirty seconds earlier and he would never have met Dom, and he would have run off with Eames, and it was possible he would have been happy and now it was all _ruined_ and—

“You should have told me,” Arthur said harshly. “Christ, Eames, you should have told me and we would have sorted it out. Did you think there was anything, in that moment, _anything_ that I would have denied you? Did you really think that?” 

“Arthur,” said Eames, and Arthur flinched but he didn’t shoot him. “I’m sorry.” 

Arthur actually laughed. “God, why do people always think they can just say they’re sorry and all the rest of it will stop mattering? It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t fucking work that way.” Arthur pulled his trigger. Eames jumped as the bullet settled in the wall next to him. “Did you feel that?” Arthur asked. “Did you feel how close that was?” Arthur took his feet off the desk finally and stood up and stalked over to Eames. “Because that’s how close we were. To _everything_. And you fucking _ruined_ it.” 

Eames looked at him steadily. “Tell me how to fix it.” 

Arthur laughed again. “What makes you think you ever could?” 

“Because I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in the world, so tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Arthur looked at him and wished that he wasn’t going to remember what he looked like for the rest of his life. He wished he didn’t know he’d never outrun this. He swung his gun quickly around and fired evenly into the middle of the Eames sketch hanging on the wall, the one he’d spotted as soon as he’d walked in, because it was _Eames’s_ , and he had fallen in love with Eames’s art before he’d fallen in love with Eames. The gunshot left a perfect round hole in the middle of the paper and singed the area around it, and Eames made a small shocked sound. 

“Oh,” said Arthur. “Did you like that one? Come find me when you fix it.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, at the end of another AU, and on the cusp of another Inceptiversary!
> 
> Thanks to my tireless beta arctacuda for dealing with this in the middle of an incredibly busy month. 
> 
> Thanks to all of you for the fantastic comments! I'm behind on replying to comments because of some RL stuff going on, but I've read every single one. I've especially loved some of the discussion about how different this feels, because this was written literally years ago. It was the first Inception fic I wrote after KtCR. So it probably reflects a somewhat earlier spin of mine on the characters, probably closer to KtCR's version than NBT's. :-)
> 
> You guys are always the best, and I am the luckiest for having all of you in my life. ::hugs all around::

Chapter Seven

Arthur went to Monte Carlo. Arthur played at the casino, and Arthur lost badly on purpose, because he deserved it. Arthur drank heavily and played poorly and tried to pretend he was going to fuck anonymous men, except he was too pathetic to do that and instead he just drank and lost money and wanted to die because he was tired of living. 

And then Mal found him. 

“Please go away,” Arthur said, and Mal practically marched him out of the dark casino into the bright seaside air of Monaco. 

“Breathe,” Mal said harshly, “and remember there’s a world out here having days and nights that you’re wasting in there.” 

“Oh, God,” said Arthur, and rolled his eyes. “Please spare me all of the French poetry about—”

“He didn’t take the money, Arthur,” Mal interrupted him. 

“What?” said Arthur, confused. 

“Eames didn’t take the money. We tried to pay him. Because, after all, he did stop your wedding and then endured you trying to shoot him in the head.” 

“If I’d wanted to shoot him in the head, he’d be dead now,” Arthur retorted, irritated. “I decided to let him live with it instead.” 

“Yes. Because what you are is naturally magnanimous.” 

“Why are you here talking to me?” Arthur complained. 

“Because you want me to be. Because when you want to hide, you _hide_. You are out right in the open here, in a _casino_ , because you want to look up one day and have him be in front of you. And then you’ll lash out and be vicious and you’ll hope he’ll come back the next day, and the next day, until you feel you can swallow your pride and he’s atoned enough. But he’s not going to come get you because he’s in love with you and he thinks you deserve better than him because he broke your heart.” 

“I’m glad you think you know all this,” said Arthur sarcastically. “I’m glad you think you know him so well, considering all you did was exchange a few emails with him. And _Dom_ did that.” 

“I know love.” 

“Oh my God, this fucking French _nonsense_ —”

“And he didn’t take the money, Arthur. Are you listening to me? We tried to double the fee for what he went through and he didn’t take the money.” 

Something about that finally got through to Arthur, to all of the aching parts of him that were scabbed over thickly so he could try not to think about them anymore, but Mal was scraping away at them, and it clicked over for Arthur, abruptly, thinking of meeting Eames for the first time in that alleyway. “But he needed that money. He needed that money badly.” 

“Which is why I’m telling you. He called off the job, Arthur. You went running off, went completely running off before we could tell you that he called off the job. Do you know when he called it off? The morning before we got there.” 

The morning before… So that whole day, in the abandoned house and the laser tag and the apartment, that whole day Eames had known he was no longer doing it for the Cobbs, doing it for the money. Eames had just been—Eames had just been—

The force of it hit him like a ton of bricks, so hard he actually stumbled backward. “Oh my God,” he said, and fear curled up through his stomach, tingling through his nervous system. “Is he dead?” 

Mal looked confused. “Why would you think that?” 

“Because he—because he—” Arthur couldn’t put the words together. 

“Arthur, listen to me.” Mal took his hands in hers and said, “Dom was wrong. In the way he treated you. Those were the drugs talking, and you knew that. But you also knew you didn’t want to end up like Dom, and you thought you would, that it was inevitable, so you left, and you tried to build yourself into something you’re not, something safe and lovely, and I understand all of that. But you’re not especially safe, and that’s okay. You can still have something lovely. Dom and I prove that. You can have that. He’s going to drive you crazy, but you’re going to love that because it’s you.” 

Mal beamed at him like she’d given him the secret of eternal youth or something, and Arthur stared at her and thought, _Fucking, fucking, fucking Christ, Eames turned down the money_. 

He said, “I have to go,” and ran. 

***

There was an initial moment of panic when Eames wasn’t in London and Arthur couldn’t find a trace of him, living or dead, and for a moment Arthur thought he’d been thrown in the Thames, feet encased in concrete, and oh my God, Arthur should have paid the debt off, no matter what had happened between them. 

And then Arthur settled down and remembered who he was, and he researched, and there was Eames, in _Iceland_ , of all places. 

He was staying in a tiny, cozy house at the point when the meager Icelandic civilization gave way to the craggy mountains and windswept fields. It was a single room—bed, couch, kitchen—and Arthur broke in and looked at the art Eames was working on. The sketch Arthur had shot was tacked over the fireplace, and Arthur stared at it and felt a little bit sick over… _everything_. Christ, why had he left so quickly? Why hadn’t he stopped to… Because he’d been terrified, that he had fallen for Eames as helplessly as he’d fallen for Eames, that he’d listen to anything Eames had to say, that he’d make a fool of himself believing every single lie Eames told him because…because….

Dusk was falling, even though it was still early, because it was Iceland, and Arthur lit a fire in the fireplace because it was getting chilly, and anyway he thought Eames might appreciate the warning that he was there. 

Then Arthur sat on the couch and picked up a sketchbook that was lying on the coffee table and flipped through it and tried not to be nervous. 

He knew Eames was coming, because Arthur was good at all of this still, he really was, when he was paying attention. So he put the sketchbook aside and waited, and the door opened and Eames walked in, bundled up in so many layers he was barely recognizable. He just looked at Arthur, and the cold swirled through the door with him, and Arthur tried to remember what he’d intended to say. 

What he said was, “Hi.” 

Eames swung the door shut and said, “No gun this time?” 

“Such a bitch to get through customs,” Arthur said. 

Eames shed his parka and said, “For a professional like you? I would have thought that would be a breeze.” 

“I thought you were dead,” Arthur heard himself say, which was not at all what he’d intended to say. 

“Thought or hoped?” 

Arthur ignored that. “I looked for you and you weren’t there and then…you were _here_. And honestly, Eames, you’re not terribly good at hiding, if Ludwig is—”

“First of all, Ludwig isn’t you. Second of all, I like this place. There’s not a lot of people and they’re easily bribed. And there are lots of tourists that cycle in and out and can be hustled at pool.” Eames was finally done taking his layers off. He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms and just looked at Arthur. 

Arthur looked back at him and tried to remember what he was supposed to say to fix this. 

Eames said, “Why are you here? Did you find out I was still alive and think you had to come and finish the job?” 

“You didn’t take the money,” said Arthur. 

“Is that relevant? You didn’t seem to think it would be relevant. You didn’t seem to think anything I said could be of any importance at all.” 

“I was… I was… I don’t do that. What I did. With you. I don’t… You… You hurt me, like I couldn’t—like I couldn’t—I was _hurt_ , so hurt, and I hurt you back, and I’m sorry.” 

“Oh, does that work when _you’re_ the one saying it?” said Eames. 

Arthur figured he deserved that. He stood and walked over to Eames, and Eames watched him warily but didn’t move. 

Arthur stood in front of him and looked at the collar of the sweater he was wearing and said, his voice sounding all choked, “I’m a fucking mess, Eames. I told you. I do this, and I ruin things, and I…I lost so much money in Monte Carlo.” 

“What?” said Eames. “What are you talking about?” 

Arthur shook his head. “Oh, Christ, I don’t know what to do other than to ask how I can fix it, and what can I do that would…that would make up for—”

“Arthur,” said Eames. “Stop talking.” 

Arthur stopped talking. 

“Tell me why you’re here,” said Eames. 

Arthur just looked at him. Then said, “So you want me to start talking again…?”

“Arthur, fucking Christ,” said Eames. 

“I love you,” said Arthur. “I never stopped. You had to know that. Because you knew I wasn’t going to shoot you. You had to know that. I would never have even gone to that office if I hadn’t—oh my God, I was so in love with you, I have never fallen so hard, so fast, and the idea that you did that on purpose, that it was all this trap you set up for me and I just _fell_ for it, because I wanted so badly for it to be true, I wanted you to be real, and mine, and I wanted all these things I thought I would never be able to get if I was me, but you made me think I could, that I didn’t have to be the one in the perfect suits with the perfect apartment and the perfect wedding, that I could be me and a fucking mess and I could still have you. I really wanted that to be real.” 

“It was,” Eames said after a second. “Every moment of it was real.” 

“I’m never going to be safe,” Arthur said. “And maybe that means I shouldn’t deserve something lovely. But I really want it. I really want to try. If you wanted to try, too, maybe we could try together and maybe someday we’ll get to—”

Eames kissed him. Eames dragged him in and kissed him and Arthur had _forgotten_ , forgotten what kissing him was like, forgotten what Eames was like. 

“I should have told you,” Eames said, and pulled Arthur’s tie off. “I should have told you. I’m sorry you found out the way you did. I’m sorry I broke your heart.” 

Arthur shook his head and pulled Eames’s sweater over his head and said, “We’re even.” 

Eames caught Arthur’s face between his hands. “The sketch, Arthur—”

Arthur winced. “I’m so sorry for that, Eames—”

“No, it’s perfect. You said to come find you when I fixed it, but it’s already fixed. It’s perfect. It’s us. It’s you and it’s me and it isn’t ruined, you didn’t ruin it, it’s perfect. Pristine things, Arthur, what the fuck good are they?”

Arthur stared at him for a moment, and then he said achingly, “I should have come so much earlier. I’m so sorry. I should have found you, so long ago. Immediately. I never should have left.”

“You had every right to leave,” Eames said, pushing at Arthur’s suit coat. “You had every right to be angry with me for not being honest with you.”

“I was in Monte Carlo,” Arthur said, and let Eames lift him to settle him on the kitchen counter. 

“Losing lots of money,” said Eames, and hooked his hands into Arthur’s pockets to pull him forward, up against him. 

Arthur hooked his legs around Eames’s waist. “So much money. I considered it an homage to you.” 

“Homage,” Eames said, and kissed him. “I’m going to make you teach me French.” 

“ _Je t'aime comme les livres, comme mon cœur sur l'écran_ ,” said Arthur into Eames’s mouth. 

Eames said, “What does that mean?” 

Arthur said, “Shoes are on sale, buy one get one free.” 

“It sounded better than that.” 

“Everything sounds better in French. Like _L’Orifice_.” 

Eames grinned at him. “I’m going to take you to bed now,” he informed him, and suddenly swung him off the counter, balancing his weight. 

Arthur swore and said, “If you drop me—”

“Darling,” said Eames, and did indeed drop him onto the bed and then followed him down. “I’m going to drop you so hard you never stop falling.” 

“Icelandic would be more practical for you to learn than French.” 

“Do you speak Icelandic, too?” asked Eames absently, pinning Arthur’s hands over his head and going to work on his chest. 

“ _Ég er góð í tungumálum_ ,” Arthur managed. 

Eames groaned and bit and said, “I am going to make you say, ‘Fuck me, Eames, please,’ in every single fucking language you know.” 

“Which one do you want me to start with?” 

“English,” said Eames. 

“Boring,” scoffed Arthur, but Eames’s hands were finally in his pants so he was less disdainful than he might have been. 

“Say it,” Eames growled into his mouth, being very torturous. 

“Remind me what it was again,” said Arthur. 

“You manage to be fucking annoying even in _bed_ ,” said Eames. 

“If you stopped pinning me, I’d be less annoying,” said Arthur. 

Eames took the hint. Eames let Arthur roll them over. Eames let Arthur straddle him. And Arthur leaned over him and said, “What was it again?” 

“Fuck me, Eames, please,” Eames prompted. “In English.” 

“I love you,” was what Arthur said, and watched Eames’s pupils dilate and thought that was even better. “ _Je t'aime. Ég elska þig_. Eames.” He kissed him, slow and deep, and pulled back and murmured, “ _Soyons mess fabuleux ensemble_.” 

“I don’t bloody care if those are Julien Dore lyrics, I love them,” said Eames. 

“Let’s be fabulous messes together,” said Arthur, and leaned up and looked down at Eames. 

And Eames, after a long moment, said, “Yes. _Oui. Já_.”


End file.
